


The Willing Sabine

by Jarad, Lianvis (Madeira_Darling), Madeira_Darling



Series: Pathbreaker [3]
Category: Wraeththu - Storm Constantine
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Androgyny, Blood Kink, Branding, Breeding, Cigars, Cutting, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Degradation, Domestic Violence, Drugs, Feminization, Gender Roles, Heavy BDSM, Humiliation, Knifeplay, Leather Kink, Other, Psychological Trauma, Shaving, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Relationships, Verbal Abuse, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-26 23:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jarad/pseuds/Jarad, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeira_Darling/pseuds/Lianvis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeira_Darling/pseuds/Madeira_Darling
Summary: The Kakkahaar meet with the Varrs at Forever to create an alliance. Lianvis and Ponclast get reacquainted, and find themselves drawn into a destructive spiral by their shared past.
Relationships: Lianvis/Ponclast (Wraeththu), Ponclast/Terzian (Wraeththu)
Series: Pathbreaker [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174013
Comments: 10
Kudos: 2





	1. The First Night

**Author's Note:**

> Segments from Lianvis' point of view written by Madeira_Darling. Ponclast segments by Jarad.

It was strange being among the Varr. The “important” ones tried so hard to look like men, with their cropped hair and their tailored suits or well shined leathers, though somehow that just served to emphasize everything that is  _ not _ male about hara. They were a little too graceful, their features a little too fine (a fact that the short hair accentuated), their voices a touch too musical no matter how deep they might force them. In turn we were served by pretty hara, all decked in jewels and silken bits of nothing. To a casual glance I suppose we might have seemed alike somehow, but they moved with the fluttering delicacy of birds, constantly aware of the potential presence of a lurking cat. I, and my hara were, on the other hand,  _cats_ . Here and at home, we were the predators, other hara the prey. These Varrs were cats who wanted to be dogs, or so I had thought until I saw him.

I had been so prepared for that meeting… I  _ thought _ . I was the acting archon. Life’s vicissitudes and pressures had turned me diamond hard and diamond dazzling. My edges were sharp and I could look any har in the eye and never flinch. Or so I thought.

But when  _ he _ walked in the room it was like seeing a ghost, but I’d seen ghosts before and this was worse. It was like seeing my own ghost, like seeing my own heart torn out and bleeding on the table before me, but I’d seen horrors before, consorted with beings that had in spirit torn me to pieces and put me back together again, and still this was worse.

Jarad… but Jarad was dead, and this was the har who had killed him. I knew that was true, even as I knew this har to be the one who had taken me in his arms while I tore him asunder trying to pull the poison from his wounds.

I don’t think my face betrayed me, only perhaps a flash of something in the eyes. A split second, unrecognizable to anyone but him, but he saw it. Of course he did.

If we had been alone I don’t know what I would have done. Would I have fallen to my knees to beg forgiveness for how poorly I had used the last of my good intentions? Stood stone faced and composed as I did then to begin the game of negotiation? Would I have fled? Claimed indisposition and sent an aide in my place because I couldn’t face speaking to him?

“Tiahaar Ponclast, I presume,” I managed, with a polite incline of my head, though I didn’t lower my eyes. We were, after all, equals. I had thought the Varrs foolish till then, weak, with their clinging to a dying past. To me Varrs had been humes with extra bits, hardly even har, but once I saw their leader I knew instantly that that was merely an external appearance, and that something much darker lurked in the beating heart of Varr far to the north. No military bluster with nothing real to back it up here.

“Tiahaar Lianvis,” he replied, as those hypnotic grey eyes raked over me, making me feel exposed even in my most formal robes. He’d changed so much since I’d seen him last. I suppose I had changed too, in my own way. We’d been barely more than children when we met, still talking about bands and books and big dreams even as we raped and pillaged our way through the ruins of human civilization. Now each of us leads a nation. I led as a mystic, a propheteer one might say. He led as a warlord, a CEO of wastelands.

I held myself straight and we commenced the polite dance of negotiation, even as part of me could not cease to remember the taste of his lips. He was pretending not to know me, so I pretended not to know him. I knew he knew though, just as he knew I knew. I could never forget that pale, beautiful face, those sleet cold eyes that could burn a har to ash or melt a heart of frozen stone. How could a har so untouchable, so immaculate and at ease in his power, bring emotions I had thought I had scorched out of myself roaring back? How could this har of all hara make me ache with all the tenderness I thought I had cast from my very being years ago?

Reaching out was almost unconscious, a stray thought that strayed too far.

_ Jarad? _

* * *

Ponclast, archon of the Varrs, was all poise and lethal elegance. He saw Lianvis, and knew him, but he had armored himself for this moment. He would be inscrutable. His cold eyes would not light with recognition. His face would not so much as twitch. He would be as a frozen lake—perfectly still, utterly opaque, its depths nobody’s business. 

He felt, beneath it all. When Lianvis pressed his hand, there was a sound like screaming in his head. Some prisoner inside him wanted out. He ignored it. His own pain was nearly as inconsequential to him as anyhar else’s. Jarad would stay dead under the ice. 

They spoke in stilted pleasantries, nearly automatic. There is a script for such things. It played out as they walked into the heart of Forever, conducted by Terzian, in the role of gracious host, to the best parlor. A fire was blazing on the hearth. Ponclast found it unnecessary. It was hardly cold yet. But his desert-dwelling guests were drawn as if magnetically to the seats nearest the flames. 

Ponclast seated himself in a large easy chair—Terzian’s favorite, practically his throne, ceded to the archon when he visited. A cigar and a glass of sheh were deposited in his leather-gloved hands by some attentive, hovering har. From this vantage he surveyed his guests, coolly sizing up each Kakkahar in turn. To his eye, they were very feminine, with their long hair, flowing clothes, heavy jewelry and heavier kohl. However, he understood that their mores were different than those of the Varrs. The hara before him were the best and most powerful specimens the Kakkahar could offer. They could be considered as the ‘men’ of their tribe. His lips curved with inner irony at the phrase, which came to his mind unbidden.  _ Inaccurate, yet apt. _

He saw proud faces and calculating eyes. Their hands were soft, spared from callouses of either hard work or combat. Slave labor saved them from the first, and occult prowess from the second. These were, all of them, hara to be reckoned with, though not all of them equally. He spotted the sycophants and second-fiddles among them easily. They’d missed out on the coveted spots nearest the fireplace.

He did not deign to look at Lianvis until the very last. He did not need to study him in depth. He knew him, or had known him. A glance filled him in on most of what he had missed through their years of separation—Lianvis was older, probably wiser, definitely tougher and much more powerful. He’d lost his innocence and his softness of heart. They had grown parallel even though apart. 

Ponclast was as conscious of how he appeared as he was exquisitely aware of his guests. His leather uniform was immaculate and perfectly tailored, its blackness relieved only by the scarlet cape of office draped around his throat and over his shoulder, a bloody slash below his bloodless face. He held his drink and his cigar as if they were emblems of power, an orb and a scepter. He knew he was beautiful, but also knew that nohar would dare to stare. He was to be heard, not seen. 

Empty talk resumed—questions about the Kakkahaar’s journey to Galhea, offerings of refreshment. Terzian stood at Ponclast’s right hand and spoke more or less on his behalf, doing a passable job of making polite chatter without sounding as though he was gritting his teeth. He didn’t like all these foreigners in his house. The Kakkahaar could tell—they didn’t need to be psychic to see it, though psychic they certainly were. It amused them greatly. 

All the while, Ponclast was painfully aware of Lianvis. He was a bit surprised by how viscerally memories returned in his presence. He had a certain smell, a powerful seductive musk that Ponclast remembered well. It was now amplified by some exotic perfume with notes of sandalwood and tobacco. It brought to mind the times their limbs had tangled. Hara hardly age and rarely put on weight, and Lianvis’ physique appeared just as lithe and slim as it had been when they were teenagers. Ponclast sipped at his sheh, and ruminated on what erotic sophistication the passing years must have imparted. Beneath his stiff trousers, his ouana-lim was stiffer.

A delicate thread of intention touched his mind, bringing with it a stronger whiff of sandalwood and smoke. 

_ Jarad? _

Somehar else had just addressed him aloud, something about the coming cold weather and whether the winter was much harsher North, at Fulminir. He turned to answer without missing a beat, at the same time silently projecting a reply to Lianvis’ impudent intrusion, a reply loaded with all his patented coldness and contempt:

_ Who? _

* * *

His response couldn’t have surprised me, not really. My lover is dead, long live his murderer. The king is dead, long live the king. The talk was trivial, weather, gratitude for our coming despite our initial reluctance (would I have been more or less reluctant had I known…?), the most basic and obvious of terms, mutual non-aggression, assurance of passage through trade routes. Nothing contentious, nothing worth quibbling over. I hated that, it gave me far too much freedom to dwell on subjects that I had no wish to dwell upon. 

I had hurt him-- no, I had hurt Jarad, as a clumsy teenager, trying to heal and give comfort with all the wrong words, all the wrong actions. I had realized later, older and clearer eyed, that I had reopened and widened wounds that were not even fully scabbed over. I had learned then how little good intentions matter. Skill without compassion is a far greater help than compassion without skill. 

How I had wanted Jarad, that beautiful har with hair like a raven’s wing and kohl rimmed eyes like quicksilver, in worn-out jeans dancing under swirling multi-colored lights in a club as if he could become one with the music. He’d wanted me too and I’d known it, and revelled in it. I had been quite popular in Oomar, a commodity in high demand, but Jarad had been special. When we’d danced together, or sat squashed together on an overcrowded and thoroughly decrepit sofa passing a joint and lying about the things we’d done with friends, he’d had this way of looking at me that made me feel like we both knew a secret, that we both saw through things in a way other hara didn’t. He made me feel seen and longed for and sacred. His desire for me was like a mirror held up showing me what I might be, and so I let myself become the legend he thought I was. He taught me that I held the seductive power I proceeded to turn on half the phyle as practice. I wanted to hold him in suspense until I found the perfect moment, until the planets aligned for our union so as to guarantee happily ever after. I wanted a moment from the movies I’d seen before the world fell apart, and I was terrified he’d see through me if I got too close, terrified he’d realize I was as shallow and silly as most of the others, and toss me aside for some har better suited to his great and terrible destiny. I could see that destiny written in his eyes even then, long before he did.

So I had waited and teased him, always locking eyes with him when I was off to bed with some other har; always a little too close until I slipped away at the last second; always on the verge of that perfect moment.

But I waited too long to tell him, and let slip my secret (by deed if not by word) to too many other hara, and he got hurt, and I made it worse, and so to hell with good intentions.

* * *

They did the dance for days. They breakfasted, lunched, and dined in all the comfort and style that only Forever could provide. They toured the Kakkahaar around Galhea, and made them pretend to be interested in its farms, barracks, metalsmiths, and merchants. 

They also showed them the pens where human prisoners were corralled. Here Ponclast had occasion to demonstrate his aim as well as his callousness. One of the humes, probably suicidal, dared to shout an insult at him. The man fell to the dusty ground with a bullet in his eye. Lianvis startled a bit when this happened, mainly, Ponclast presumed, at the unexpected noise, but perhaps as well from shock at seeing what his precious Jarad had become. 

Ponclast coldly holstered his gun. The smell of powder hung in the air.

“Good shot, Lordra,” Terzian said admiringly. 

Ponclast inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment, but sneered when Terzian turned away. 

Lianvis’ face had become a mask once more.

There were talks as well—tedious and formal, but for Ponclast still more interesting than the eating and the sight-seeing. It was obvious from the beginning that an accord could be reached—the alliance against the Gelaming was as good as made—but details were proving vexatious. The nomad tribe was absolutely unwilling to relocate from their desert territory to more fertile and defensible ground. Ponclast had hoped they would migrate to Fulminir, but it quickly became obvious this was not to be, infinitely complicating issues of deployment. The Kakkahaar seemed determined to drive a hard bargain on every particular, seeking guarantees of low prices on traded commodities and even trying to force the Varrs to commit to a quota of slave purchases to be made from them each year. Ponclast was especially reluctant to submit to this last, since the Varrs had all the free labor they needed between captured humes and conquered hara. An agreement was finally reached with the stipulation that seventy percent or more of the slaves must be high-quality soume breeding stock. 

Through it all, Ponclast assiduously avoided being alone with Lianvis. It was not because he was afraid. They would be alone together—very much alone, and very much together, but it would happen when it suited Ponclast, not before. He could smell longing when Lianvis looked at him. He was not conscious of any such feeling in himself, not beyond physical arousal. Dead Jarad had screamed only once, and since then had been mercilessly smothered into silence. 

Once, a lithe, tanned teenage har had teased and led him on. Now, Ponclast knew how to tease. He did it by giving almost nothing. He rarely spoke to Lianvis directly. He looked at him only as much as was strictly necessary, and barely even that. This iron reserve meant that, on the rare occasion that he chose to lock eyes with his prey, the brief contact kindled desperation. He doled his attention out like a torturer, as if splashing tiny sips of water over the lips of a har dying of thirst. 

The only downside was that his nights at Forever were lonely. Here Terzian had a rare advantage. He was not sexually available to Ponclast when he was at home. It was a tacit agreement of their relationship, one of the few boundaries Ponclast did not violate. So Ponclast had no Terzian, while Terzian had his two exquisite consorts, Cobweb and Cal. 

Of course aruna partners were available to Ponclast—he could’ve had any har he wanted, whether or not they wanted in return. He was archon. That was his privilege. The trouble was not a lack of available hara, but of interesting hara. Terzian’s staff and soldiers did not currently whet his appetite, though they were har and so, of course, beautiful. He briefly considered approaching one of the other Kakkahaar, but dismissed it as too risky. They were all witches. He sensed that their essence would pollute him. They might even be able to get the upper hand with him, which would of course be unacceptable. 

Only Lianvis tempted him. Only with Lianvis was he utterly confident of his own power. The Kakkahaar archon might be the greater adept, but Ponclast didn’t need magic to dominate Lianvis and crush his will. He had a much more potent weapon—shared history, and his quarry’s achingly obvious heartache.

So Ponclast kept company with his own right hand, and waited, with gradually increasing impatience, for the right moment to strike. 

* * *

  
He kept me in suspense for six days, almost a week, like the old God holding himself apart through his work until the Sabbath. I wondered if I was going mad. We had parted on good enough terms it had seemed, and our relationship had been brief and not even particularly passionate. We hadn’t stormed so much as drizzled depressingly along until destiny had exploded and shown us how little had ever held us together. Why should our sad sordid little history kindle such fire now years later? Or was it just me? Was I imagining the intensity in the rare moments our eyes met? I could have looked inside his head, but even if he hadn’t noticed, surely my companions would have, and they would have seen what I was looking for, and that would have been unbearable.

When he finally granted me more than a passing glance, it was after one of those great formal dinners which Cobweb so excels at hosting. We were in the drawing room and he was standing by the fire, gazing into the flames when I caught his attention. It seemed inevitable. I hadn’t really tried to approach before that night, as he had done such an impressive job of making sure he was always surrounded and in the middle of conversation with at least three other hara, but that night he seemed to be waiting for me.

“Tiahaar Varr,” I said, a polite way to address an archon. 

He turned to me then, looking me over with the obvious intention I should notice his gaze and be acutely aware that he was assessing my erotic appeal, though his expression belied no verdict on that count. I tensed. I knew he intended it to be insulting, and I hated that he knew I would stay and tolerate it.

“Tiahaar Kakkahaar,” he said in turn, a hint of a smile on those pale lips, “if I’m not wrong, you’ve been quite eager to speak with me for some time.”

Like a chess master he’d left me no good response. To admit my eagerness was to put myself in the position of an inferior… a har who had to wait at Ponclast’s pleasure until Ponclast felt like listening. To deny it was to be unforgivably rude.

“We haven’t gotten much chance to speak alone till now,” I replied, keeping my body language easy, relaxed, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, which it would have been if not for our past.

“No,” he agreed, leaning easily against the mantle, “is something on your mind?”

“I think it would be wise for us to… clear the air a bit before we progress any further with these negotiations.” If he had still been Jarad I might have made some apology for the past, but to Ponclast… no, even if he had still been Jarad, I was no longer that Lianvis and as I was then to show my hand so far was unthinkable. I was not Lianvis har Uigenna but Lianvis har Kakkahaar and here was not Jarad but Ponclast, Archon of the Varrs.

“Oh?” came the bland reply. 

He wasn’t going to give an inch, and so I met his gaze unflinchingly and said in a tone that allowed no argument: “We have a history, you and I.”

“Yes,” he agreed as that purposeful gaze again stripped me bare, reminding me of our past and how he had made me ache for his touch even while he’d been inside me, each of us utterly alone in that moment of what should have been the most profound and joyous union. “Let’s take a walk.”

So out into the garden we went, side by side. I wondered if Terzian and Cobweb ever walked together that way. By what little I had seen of their relationship, I couldn’t imagine they did. We were silent for a little while, strolling along the meandering paths.

“I thought you were dead,” I said, absently plucking gardenia blossoms for my hair.

“Jarad is dead. He died the night I left,” he said, as if he were announcing he’d thrown away a broken appliance or a burnt out lightbulb.

I picked petals absently from a flower I hadn’t found a place for in my coiffure,  _ he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, Jarad, Ponclast, Jarad, Ponclast. _

“Yes,” I agreed, “I’d heard rumors about that.”

“But you didn’t know who he’d become.”

“No, I didn’t know,” I affirmed. 

A corner of his mouth twitched, the barest hint that he might ever smile.

“Good,” he replied. He seemed at ease, though I wondered. I wondered if I still made him burn the same way he still made me burn. It wasn’t as if he’d got much satisfaction from me when he’d had me. Something about his presence made me feel painfully aware of how I must appear to him… to Ponclast, not Jarad. Maybe I’d only ever had Ponclast. To him…  _ next to him _ I was a pretty soft yielding thing, not a barbaric sorcerer prince of the desert with magic in his fingertips, not a har to fear whose midnight atrocities were whispered with fascinated horror throughout Megalithica. To him I was soume-har, a category unimaginable among my hara, “soume-har” indeed, it was ridiculous, but with him, he made me feel as if the category fit. It was irritating-- infuriating even to be dismissed so readily. I wondered vaguely if hume women had felt like this when men brushed them off with the same casual ease.

I resisted the urge to tell him of the things I did in underground chambers, of my own exquisite cruelties. What good would it do to show him how eager I was to prove that I was his equal? I could imagine little that would be so humiliating as that.

_ What if he just had you here in the garden _ came the perverse part of me that was enjoying this game.

“I suppose I’m glad to see you again,” I said, gazing out at the dark mirror of the lake at night. He was close enough to me that I could catch his cologne on the wind, something expensive and refined intermingling with blood and tobacco and danger. The “robe” I wore that night was slinky and backless and close to frontless. I’d found myself dressing to seduce, perfuming myself and painting my face to emphasize every part of my more feminine physical charms as those seemed to be the ones that interested Varrs like him.

I looked at him then, letting my gaze linger properly since the first time since our reunion. He looked like Jarad, no lines on that pale perfect face, and yet utterly unlike him. Jarad had been like most Uigenna, glamorously ragged. Ponclast’s perfect neatness, the hair cropped too short to ever be disarranged, the leather gloves which prevented anything from dirtying those lovely long fingered hands… all of it made it utterly clear that this was not the har I’d loved all those years ago, and yet still I was fascinated. This fascination had none of the sweetness of that first love. This was unhealthy, the kind of desire that from its first moment promised agony, but that was what I wanted. Ponclast made me want to suffer, to let him carve the heart once mine, inherited from Jarad, into bite size pieces and eat them raw.

“Are you?” he asked absently, twisting the knife. I knew he wanted me to know how little I meant to him, how unimportant all this was to him. 

“Do we have to play this game?”

“I thought you liked games.”

“I lost my taste for them a long time ago.”

* * *

  
It felt right to walk through the garden with Lianvis. This conversation had to happen outdoors, for it was a hunt. The cool night air helped Ponclast maintain his self-control. It would permit no flush to darken his cheek, and chill his blood if desire began to kindle.

He thought of dead Jarad. A naive har—a  _ boy _ , really, still barely more than human. He had been weak. He had reeled from pain. Already he had known, at least, how to put up a cold facade to hide his feelings. Becoming Ponclast had been mainly a matter of growing into the mask. 

Jarad had died that night when he left Oomar, yes—but it had taken some time to learn who Ponclast would be. First he cut his hair short, and then shorter. He went away by himself into the wasteland and burned the cuttings, staring into the flames, stench of burning hair scorching his nose and the foul smoke causing his eyes to water.  _ Here I leave my fear, weakness, my softness,  _ he thought.  _ I will never submit again _ . It was a funeral for Jarad, a cremation. It was also the first real act of magic he committed, though he didn’t think of it that way at the time. Later he would teach the ritual to his warriors. Now every ouana Varr repeated it each time he cut his hair—the withdrawal to some wild place away from others, the burning, the words of renunciation whispered or thought. 

When had Ponclast really been born? Was it in the bloodlust that had grown in him during those early skirmishes, when Varr had been just a ragtag band of misfits? Was it the first time he’d indulged in pelki, taken furtively and almost guiltily on a defeated and dying foe? 

No, those primitive atrocities had merely been his conception and gestation. Ponclast had truly arrived the night that he commanded the prisoners stripped, bound and lined up in orderly fashion, for him to choose from. He took his time examining them, while his hara looked on. He didn’t choose the prettiest, but the toughest, the har who glared at him openly with hate and defiance. That was the one he wanted to break. He grabbed his selection by the hair and dragged him to his tent, calling out casually over his shoulder that his officers should make their choices next, and then the common soldiers. 

That night was filled with screaming, but the loudest screams came from the archon’s tent, and they continued long after everyhar else had sated his lust and cruelty. When Ponclast was finally done, he tossed his victim out the door. In the morning all eyes saw the shell of what had once been a har lying naked, bruised and bloody on the threshold. 

That was the night he formally embraced his brutality, announced it to the world, and made it an institution. It was truly the birth of Ponclast, and also the birth of Varr. After that, savagery became an accomplishment to them, not a pathetic necessity. It was something they took pride in and looked forward to, the privilege of the victor.

Word spread of the atrocity. Ponclast had deliberately ordered some of the victims released alive, so they might tell the tale. It drew ire from the surrounding tribes, but Varrish cohesion had strengthened immeasurably. Their name was known, and feared. That gave them courage. They repelled attack after attack, inflicting heavy casualties and taking many prisoners. 

After every battle, Ponclast had the captives stripped and lined up as before. He walked along the row, inspecting bodies and faces, letting their fear build before asking each har a question: “Do you want to be Varr?” Those who said ‘yes’ had to kneel and kiss the archon’s ring before being released. Those who said ‘no’ were handed over to the ones who said ‘yes,’ and used to demonstrate their commitment. 

Ponclast now turned to Lianvis and examined him the same way he had sized up his prisoners, the same way he still did. Compared to Ponclast, Lianvis was wearing next to nothing, a clinging draping garment of filmy material that exposed all of his back and most of his chest. It was an unseasonable choice of attire and the Kakkahaar was shivering in the night air. His nipples showed erect through the thin fabric. Lianvis had only grown more beautiful since Ponclast had last laid eyes on him—or Jarad had. The hand that applied the makeup was more skillful now, the adornments more expensive and selected with greater taste. Based on the way that the slinky skirts were hanging, it was very obvious that he was not ouana at the moment.

“Fine,” said Ponclast. “No games, then.”

He grabbed Lianvis by the waist and pulled the har to him, crushing their bodies together, and proceeded to devour his lips. His kiss was all teeth and tongue and no tenderness at all. Lianvis made a stifled noise into his mouth, then melted, wrapping his arms around Ponclast’s neck. Hot breaths mixed, and in Lianvis’ Ponclast saw flashes of memory: night rituals in the desert, bloodied sacrificial knives, perfumed bodies draped in gold chains, smoking incense, and just for a moment, dead Jarad dancing at Club Hermes, torso bare save for a ragged feather boa. 

Ponclast breathed back hate and malice, gaping wounds and savaged orifices, towns burning, gunfire, hanging bodies twisting in the wind. 

“You’re going to come to bed with me now,” he stated, breaking away. 

* * *

  
When he kissed me it felt like a gut punch but I wanted it that way. I needed the pain as much as I needed his desire. He brought out the monster in me and I showed him helplessly all the worst things I had done, atrocities rendered beautiful by ceremony and firelight and in return he showed me carnage and it made me ache with longing. 

_ Do that to me, burn everything in me to ashes but the water of soume, leave only what submits, everything else is flammable  _ I breathed into him, pleading without words. Perhaps I thought he could cleanse me of my past. His barbarity was a safe haven, a shadow which could hide my own, even if I was in part responsible for everything he had done.

I clung to him like a vine, wrapped in the scent of leather and of him, and when he pulled away I almost stumbled, weak in the knees and dizzy with desire.

“Thank you, Lordra,” was all I could say, using the title that didn’t belong on my lips, a title for his subjects to use.

He led the way, striding ahead of me. No extension of the chivalrous arm to help me along the moonlit path in my delicate formal slippers. I refused to hike my robe up to my knees and scurry along trying to keep up. I maintained a dignified pace and gate and he didn’t leave me utterly behind, though he never glanced over his shoulder to check on me. He waited for me at the steps of Forever, arms folded, watching me walk. I was painfully conscious of his eyes on me and found myself suddenly aware of just how much I typically swung my hips when I moved.

When I arrived to stand beside him, he gripped me by the upper arm and marched me wordlessly inside and up the stairs. The leather of his glove against my bare skin made me shudder with need.

His bedroom was the best in the house, a room furnished and decorated especially for his visits. It was decorated in the dark forbidding colors he preferred, black and blood red, and all the furniture was of heavy carved dark wood that looked as if it could stand up against an assault with heavy artillery. Bolted to the bed posts were metal rings, obvious attachment points for binding whoever shared the archon’s bed as he saw fit. Similar hardware could be found in various places, on the walls, on the floor, even hanging from the ceiling on one side of the room, hanging from chains attached to what appeared to be a winch. Within easy reach of the bed there was a rack for implements with which I was intimately familiar, whips, crops… knives. It looked, in short, in some ways very much like my underground temple. I was on the other side of the equation now, a position I had not been remotely close to in years, and I was for a moment terribly afraid.

He tore the filmy robe off me with a clinical passionlessness, that made it seem as if he were preparing to examine me rather than roon me, and let the pieces flutter soundlessly to the floor, and then instead of taking me in his arms as any normal har might he simply barked the word “Stay,” before stepping away to examine me, circling me like I was prey.

“Maybe I should just shove you naked out into the corridor, though you’d probably like that too much,” he mused, running fingers lazily through my hair, “You really are  _ such _ a pretty har. Hell, Viss, I almost mistook your whole delegation for a present to amuse my generals in honor of our alliance. All that hair and perfume and makeup, you’re more soume than most of our soume hara. Maybe we should renegotiate a little, make the deal a little more like the Romans and the Sabines, hm? If your hara are anything like you, they’ll probably go for it. I expect you’d make for a good little set of broodmares.”

* * *

Lianvis was silent as Ponclast taunted him. His only visible response to the degradation was a little extra color on his cheeks. Ponclast suspected there might be another response as well, and shoved his gloved fingers between the har’s legs to check. As he had suspected, they came away dripping. 

“You always were a whore,” Ponclast remarked. He stuck his fingers into Lianvis’ mouth to make him lick the leather clean. The blonde har’s eyes flickered closed as he did so, as if in fear or reverence.

“Bend over the bed,” Ponclast ordered, and so Lianvis did. The Varr archon briefly considered tying him in place, but concluded it was probably unnecessary. If he squirmed too much or made a scene it might come to that, but Ponclast didn’t really think he would. 

He strode to his rack of implements and made a selection. It was a cruel bullwhip, six feet long. The room was big enough to let him throw it. It appealed to him partly because of its viciousness, but more so because of its remote nature. Lianvis was desperate to feel him close, so Ponclast was going to hurt him from halfway across the room. 

He stalked away, absent-mindedly cracking the whip. It was alive in his hands, always active when he held it, lashing like a long cat’s tail. He felt a particular bond with this whip. The skill required to use it gave him great satisfaction, and he could now wield it as accurately as if it were part of his own body, and with nearly as much erotic pleasure. When he thought he’d reached the appropriate distance he turned and assessed his target. Long blonde hair streamed down his victim’s back, obscuring the smooth flesh.

“Push your hair over your shoulder,” Ponclast’s ordered, and Lianvis did. His hands trembled as he did so, as if he knew what was coming.

The shot was now clear. Experimentally, Ponclast threw the whip. It hissed through the air with terrifying speed. The tip barely kissed Lianvis on the shoulder, but it had gathered such momentum that it cut like a knife and drew blood instantly. He yelped, and Ponclast smiled thinly. He never missed. 

“Thank you, Lordra,” Lianvis said in a shaky voice, and Ponclast’s smile bared teeth. He was going to stripe that beautiful body all over, leave it bloody and covered in welts. 

Ponclast threw the whip again, leaning into it this time so that more of it would strike flesh. The lash left a bloody slash across his victim’s back. Lianvis moaned and arched, throwing back his head. Between his thighs, his lam glistened with fluids. Ponclast resisted the urge to aim directly for it. That was the last place he planned to hurt Lianvis. Perhaps it would be better if he never even touched it at all. After all, the har had other holes to use. 

* * *

He didn’t bind me. He didn’t need to, and the fact that he knew it sent a fresh wave of burning shame through me that went straight to my lam, making me drip from where his glove had been.

I saw him select the whip out of the corner of my eye and shuddered as he cracked it behind me. When he asked me to move my hair, I knew what was coming, of course I did, but when it struck me that first time I couldn’t help but make a noise, a short sharp animal sound that bubbled up from some primal place, from fear itself, but the pain was a bright star of clarity, a cleansing fire and I needed more.

“Thank you, Lordra,” I gasped, helpless, desperate for whatever he might give me. Pain or pleasure, it didn’t matter as long as it was his will. The whip sang again and cracked over my skin. I knew I was bleeding and my lam dripped yaloe in sympathy with my bloodied back. Every stroke made me hungrier, more eager for his touch. The whip felt like a caress as much as a cruelty. Its bite more intimate than any mere gentle brush of fingers could ever be, at least for me. He saw my poisoned vile soul and gave me the balm of pain to soothe it.

“Soume hara are so fundamentally disloyal. Somehar kills your chesnari, and right away you get wet for the murderer. Perhaps it’s the feminine instinct to seek the strongest mate,” Ponclast said, acid in his voice before the whip came down again. The pain was exquisite. I didn’t scream, couldn’t, instead I threw back my head in a silent howl of agony. I knew my face must be a mask of pain, tears ran from my eyes as no tears had since I had forced myself to stop weeping over Jarad years ago. After a time though the pain seemed to change and I found myself moaning, hips bucking back at the stroke of the whip as if I was being fucked.

The noises I was making were lewd to say the least and the fact that all this went together, the pain, my arousal, the har causing me to react this way, everything about the situation made me burn with humiliation. 

“Please,” I gasped, not sure what I was begging for at that point. He’d broken me long before we were even together in the garden. I was ashamed of myself. I had known he was manipulating me and yet here I was, his toy, his fool,  _ soume-har.  _ Where was the har I had conjured up first from scraps of a dying city, and then from desert sands? Who was it Ponclast turned me into?

* * *

As the blood flowed, dripping down Lianvis’ graceful back, Ponclast’s lust grew animal. He plied the whip again and again, his ouana-lim throbbing each time that leather scored flesh. Lianvis’ rough breathing and desperate moans only sharpened his hunger. 

Part of him wanted to continue the beating, to carry on until Lianvis fainted from blood loss. He imagined throwing a cup of water on his face to revive his victim in order to mercilessly carry on. He’d done that many times, with other hara. Those hara usually ended up dead, whether or not he’d planned to kill them. Once he fell into that kind of rhythm, he found it almost impossible to stop. Better not. Better to give in to the other part of him, the one that needed to throw Lianvis down on the bed and fuck him, now. 

His hands went to his fly. About to pull down the zipper and free his ‘lim, he reconsidered.  _ No, not this. Not yet.  _ There was a better cruelty still, the cruelty of withholding. How best to inflict it? 

He made himself be still, thinking. After a moment he neatly coiled the whip and set it down on an end table, then poured himself a drink. He took his time to collect himself as he sipped, watching Lianvis through narrowed eyes. This har needed to be wanted. How best could Ponclast satisfy himself while denying Lianvis the solace of being desired?

His eye fell on a long hunting knife that hung on his rack of implements, and his lips curved in a savage smile. He knew the answer.

He crossed the room in a few swift strides. He had the knife in his hand and Lianvis down on the bed on his back faster than the other har knew what was happening. The blade kissed Lianvis’s throat, prompting him to lift his chin. Ponclast knelt between his legs and sneered down at him. Cold fire was in his eyes. 

“So, you’re pretty,” he said. “So what? I’ve had that ‘lam before. So have hundreds of other hara. It’s what you’ve got going for you, but it’s not that much, Lianvis.”

Lianvis gave a stifled gasp, as if he needed to gulp in air but didn’t dare move his throat that much. Ponclast laughed sharply and traced the tip of the knife down his neck, along his collarbones, and then back up to his cheek. 

“Hara like you set too much store by beauty. Beauty can be destroyed,” he said meaningfully. “Without it, what are you?”

Lianvis was shaking. Ponclast could tell he still hoped this was a sexual game. He’d probably be fighting back if he didn’t think so. Or maybe he was just too scared to resist.

The knife made its deadly way down Lianvis’ trembling body, not cutting, merely tracing menacing and suggestive lines. Ponclast drew it over his chest, circling a nipple, teased it along his flat belly and the curve of his hipbone, then delicately used the steel to tease apart the petals of Lianvis’ dripping ‘lam.

“Of course, without a pretty face, you’d still have this,” he mused. “It would almost be worse for you to still be pretty and but maimed between the legs. False advertising, you know.”

* * *

The knife. I froze. Animal panic rose in me along with memories of other knives, other threats. Other boys in a back alley with switchblades “you’re real pretty huh?” so pretty they left me limping, the knife that opened my arm to make me har, “Oh you’re going to be so pretty when this is through,” said the mad har who’d died falling through a rotting floor after he’d rooned me for the first time, “What a pretty face,” said Watchful the Shaman as he carved the Ara sigil into arm with a tattooing chisel before he rooned me, “I should fix that pretty face of yours,” said Mikail, waving a knife drunk the night I told him I didn’t want him coming around anymore, and then he’d fixed Jarad instead. 

I was very very still. Anything I said could be used against me so I stayed silent. The knife moved down, sliding delicately over the side of my neck. It was erotic, and utterly horrifying. I shut my eyes, then forced them open, remembering times when shutting them had been ill advised.

“Don’t you dare fucking look away from me,” Watchful had growled, as he back handed me across the face, “think I’m ugly, do you, pretty cunt? I’ll show you ugly if you shut your eyes again.”

So I watched and was very still. Would doing that to me please him? Would he find some pleasure in ruining my value? Could he only take aruna with me if he took something of me away with him?

“Would it make you happy, Lordra?” I asked in a voice that sounded alien to me, small and pleading, meek, “to do that to me?”

I knew and hated that voice. It was the voice of compliance and fear. The fawning voice of submission that had kept me alive so often in the early days of wraeththu.

“I promise I’m better than when you last had me,” I managed to gasp, eyes turning up to him, pleading, “let me show you?”

I ached to please him, show him just how much I’d learned.

* * *

Ponclast was surprised, amused, and a bit disgusted to see how quickly Lianvis had broken. He’d hoped for more of a challenge. He decided to let these feelings show, since they could only cause pain. 

He withdrew the knife and wiped it fastidiously on the sheets, then sheathed it and laid it aside. “You’re far too eager to abase yourself,” he said, in a tone that dripped disdain. “All for such a small thing—a little threat, perhaps made in jest. I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

“You would have done it, Lordra,” Lianvis panted. His eyes were still wide, as if he feared to look away or even to blink.

“I would’ve done it,” Ponclast confirmed, “If you were not my ally. Use your head, Viss. Aren’t you an archon? Your hara seem to be under that impression. They can’t all be fools, so I assume you usually pass better for a har to be taken seriously.” 

Lianvis opened his mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a soft moan. His ‘lam was visibly gulping with desire. Ponclast gave no quarter.

“Besides, I’m not eager to sully a good hunting knife with your filthy cunt. Your yaloe is probably caustic. Why do you think I haven’t touched it without gloves?”

Lianvis bit his lip. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, but his crying was silent. Ponclast wondered idly when he’d learned not to make too much noise. 

“No,” Ponclast continued, “I want nothing to do with your ‘lam. It doesn’t interest me. But you are right that you have other uses.” He stretched himself lazily across the bed to reach a gold cigarette case that sat on the side table, retrieved a cigarette and lit it. “There’s an enema bag in the bathroom,” he said blandly. “Go clean yourself out, if you can.” 

“Yes, Lordra,” Lianvis said meekly. He dragged himself up from the bed and padded towards the bathroom. 

“Leave the door open,” Ponclast called. He didn’t fetishize the process, in fact he found it distasteful, but denying Lianvis privacy during such a degrading procedure would make him miserable. Let him worry that at any moment he might be observed. 

Ponclast lay on the bed and smoked, and listened with half an ear to the uncomfortable grunts and embarrassing liquid noises that came from the bathroom. His ‘lim was rock hard inside the leather trousers. His gloved hand rubbed it absently through them, dead skin on dead skin over living flesh. 

He’d always liked leather. He knew exactly what kind of hume man he’d wanted to become: the kind that rode a motorcycle and shaved with a gleaming straight razor, who had a boyfriend who polished his boots to a high shine before they went out together to feel up other leather-clad men in dark clubs. A man among men who were men like he was—whose haircuts always looked fresh and whose bodies bulged with muscle, who wore colorful bandanas in their back pockets to telegraph their predilections, who smoked cigars and fucked shamelessly in public parks and back allies. Men to whom “Sir” was the most touching word of love. That kind of man was a relic of a bygone time before he was even born. 

Now there were only Varrs. Naturally, that was much better. The part of his dead fantasy that Ponclast mourned was the straight razor. Fourteen years old and removing his first skimpy stubble with a disposable blade, he’d already dreamed of a heavy shining piece of stainless steel, of old-fashioned shaving soap and a fancy brush to smear the lather onto his face. Luxury shaving had seemed to him like the acme of powerful masculinity. He’d never gotten to experience it. 

Sometimes it drove him crazy that he no longer grew a beard. He avoided touching his own face so he wouldn’t feel his own depressingly smooth skin. He had acquired a straight razor, however. He couldn’t use it for its intended purpose, but it was good for slashing throats. 

Lianvis emerged from the bathroom, and Ponclast sat up, preparing to inspect him. It hadn’t taken him too long to clean out. Either he had done a poor job, or was experienced with this and knew how to be efficient. One way or another, Ponclast would find out shortly. 

* * *

I could see he wasn’t pleased with my submission. He thought me pathetically weak, and for him I was. Couldn’t he see though that if he had done it, if he'd stuck that knife right in my lam, I would have said nothing? Would have gone to my healers with some story about a ritual gone wrong, and made sure no one was the wiser. 

_ Lordra, I would have let you,  _ I thought with a shudder. It wasn’t just him I was scared of. I could have stopped him easily enough. I was an adept and his magical prowess paled in comparison to my own, but he  _ had _ me. The only magic he needed to bind me in place and crush any spark of resistance was our history. The weight of it held me pinned like a butterfly in a case, precisely here, even if he didn’t want me, it held me fast.

When he let me up and told me to clean myself out, I nodded. I knew the process very well. I had performed it for nights with Velisarius, with Wraxillan and Manticker, and even before I was har I’d had predilections in that direction. He made something I had done with business like efficiency in the past into something utterly humiliating. Mercifully it didn’t take long, and I was confident he would find no fault, at least, in my cleanliness.

I took the time to make sure I had left no disarray in the washroom, and to dry my tears and compose myself a bit. My makeup had stayed largely in place, and I smoothed my hair and straightened my back and went back to him unafraid, or at least I told myself I was. If I was going to do this, offer myself to him like this, I was going to do it with conviction and pride. I had not been coerced into coming here. I had made this choice because this was what I wanted, and I refused to abdicate responsibility for my own decisions. I was a willing partner, not a cowed captive, but an archon in my own right, wasn’t I?

Had I broken or had I ascended, rising like some phoenix from Jarad’s ashes, the ashes I had been mourning until I met his killer, a meeting which set me aflame myself. How many Lianvises had I been? The hume boy had not been Lianvis yet, but there had been Lianvis newly har, alone and confused; Lianvis who had made himself a wild legend among the Uigenna, a seductive breaker of hearts; Lianvis a teenager in love with Jarad holding his adoration close to his chest because the world was dangerous; Lianvis the guilt wracked mess of grief when Jarad disappeared after that awful awful night; Lianvis the disciple of Velisarius who thought he had found a solution to everything that lead up to that night that had wrecked his world; Lianvis with a Jarad who he no longer recognized and who he didn’t know how to help; Lianvis mourning in the desert realizing that nothing meant much of anything; Lianvis committing every atrocity he could think of in an attempt to feel something… anything now that nothing mattered; and now this raw desperate animal thing, a masochistic bitch in heat.

“I have done as you asked, Lordra,” I said, kneeling at the side of the bed, back erect. I was aware there was a stiffness in my voice. I was holding on to my composure with white knuckles and he probably knew it. I didn’t want to let myself feel victimized by this. I wanted this to look like a decision, even if I knew I had no real choice.

He stared at me in wordless contempt for a long moment, and then spat in my face. It smelled of cigarettes and sheh.

“Thank you, Lordra,” I said. I loved this, I hated him. This har who had killed my lover.

I wondered if I was a dog who had always needed a Master, and with Velisarius’s retreat I had lost my last one. I hated the neediness I had in me. I hated the way he made me react.

* * *

Lianvis had touched up his makeup and fixed his hair. Ponclast thought that pointless vanity. He was only about to get mussed up again. 

He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, before his kneeling supplicant. Leather sheathed fingers opened his trousers and took out the swollen ‘lim. He presented it to Lianvis without comment. The blonde har bowed his head submissively, reaching for the phallus with his moist red lips. Ponclast grabbed a fistful of his hair and shoved him all the way down on it. 

He would not let Lianvis to show off his technique and flaunt his expertise. A har like this could be in his power even while on his knees and sucking. Ponclast would not allow that. He shoved himself brutally into the back of his victim’s throat, and held him down with both hands until he gagged and choked. The flood of drool and the desperate noises Lianvis produced felt better to Ponclast than the most skilled worship ever could. He let the har up for air, and so that he could see the tears in his eyes, the lipstick already smeared and the mascara beginning to run beneath the tousled hair. Lianvis had carefully put himself back together in the bathroom, and Ponclast had ruined his efforts in seconds. Smirking in satisfaction, he slapped his shaft against Lianvis’ cheeks, first one and then the other, leaving trails of saliva and leaking aren. 

Never before had he had Lianvis like this: purely on his own terms. When they were younger, Lianvis had been the experienced one, the undamaged one, the one with the power. Now the tables were turned. Ponclast shoved Lianvis’ mouth onto his shaft once more, reveling in the feel of the struggling throat. He pinched the other har’s nostrils shut and held him down on his ‘lim, watching him turn red in the face. Lianvis choked and wriggled weakly in his grasp, but physical strength was not his forte. He could do nothing. He would breathe if and when Ponclast let him, not before. 

* * *

I gagged. I was to be allowed no show of skill. He would allow me to  _ give _ him nothing, everything he got would be taken, and I wanted it that way. This felt like a rape, and I needed that. I needed to hate it. I needed this to make me suffer and hurt my pride. I was crying, tearing up helplessly as he triggered a gag reflex I thought I’d lost years ago in a back alley in Oomar.

When he stopped my breathing, I struggled helplessly against his hand. Almost all hara are strong, but he was a trained warrior and had me in a position that was a distinct disadvantage. I wondered for a moment if  _ this _ was how I was going to die. The thought of it made me cringe. Lianvis har Kakkahaar, the seductive desert magus who choked to death on Ponclast’s cock. What a way for my story to end. He wasn’t going to kill me, of course, I was too useful to him alive. Though for a moment I wondered if this had all been a trap, a ruse to lure the most competent hara away from the Kakkahaar encampments to the south. What if they were not so magically incompetent as we’d been lead to believe… what if? All this I thought as my lungs screamed for air, and my body struggled instinctively to get away.

When he finally let me up my eyes were streaming, my nose running. I knew I must look an absolute mess, all my care and effort for naught… except not quite, because I could tell he enjoyed the destruction, smearing my lipstick across my face like the joy a thrill seeking vandal might find in slashing a painting or smashing a statue.

Except I needed to be smashed, needed to be pounded to dust by him. I hated it, hated him so much then, but that was perfect too. I needed to hate him. I wanted to bite down, press my advantage and rise up and leave, wanted to show him he was wrong about me, that I wasn’t like this, that I wouldn’t let him simply do whatever he liked with me and accept it because I wanted his proximity more than I wanted my dignity or even possibly my life.

I looked up at him feeling loathing and desire in equal measure. I hated him. I hated myself for wanting him.  I still struggled, and as I did I wondered if I was really trying to get away or if this too was a sick effort to please him. I felt claustrophobic. His ‘lim in my mouth holding it open with no ability to control it on my part brought back bad memories. Mikhail in a bad mood. Early Oomar. I started to panic, his face blending with others from my past. I tried to beg as he kept going at that punishing speed, spewing half formed words and drool as I did.

He only laughed.

* * *

He laughed in pure pleasure—the pleasure of cruelty, the keenest kind of pleasure he knew. Lianvis was reduced to a sobbing, slobbering, snotty mess at his feet. The har who had once tormented him, teased him, led him on, could resist him no longer. This was victory. 

He used the lips that were trying to plead for mercy, bringing himself dangerously close to ejaculation, only stopping at the very brink. He grabbed Lianvis’ hair to yank him off his ‘lim. For a moment, he was tempted to spew his aren all over the cringing, mascara-streaked face, but he resisted the impulse, and kicked him away onto the floor. The longer he deferred his climax, the more thrilling it would be for him, and the more punishing for his prey. 

“Lordra—” Viss gasped, his mouth like a gaping wound, a desperate plea on the tip of his tongue, but Ponclast swung a heavy backhand and smacked his words away. A little bit of blood dribbled out between Lianvis’s lips and down his chin. Whimpering and shivering, he tried to crawl out of reach, but Ponclast brought his boot down on the center of his back and pressed him to the floor. He ground his heel viciously into the fresh welts and cuts his whip had left. He was finally really smiling, lips drawn back to bare white teeth, eyes blazing with cold fire. He jerked Lianvis’ head back by the hair, forcing him to arch all the way back to look up at him.

“No,” Lianvis choked, his eyes swimming with tears. 

Ponclast’s eyes closed in ecstasy at the sweet word. 

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said. 

He mounted Lianvis there on the floor, pressing his spittle-slick ‘lim between the quivering cheeks and into the tight, dark hole. It resisted him at first, but he was relentless and soon forced the head inside. After that it was all too easy. He speared Lianvis in a swift, brutal motion. The har beneath him screamed and thrashed. His desperate bucking provoked only the most delicious sensations in Ponclast. He wrapped his forearm firmly across Lianvis’ throat in a viselike chokehold, his other hand bracing against the floor for leverage, and began to thrust. 

His victim fought him with a strength born of panic. It was difficult to stay on him, and inside, but Ponclast was up to the challenge. His own athleticism thrilled him. It had been awhile since he’d taken proper heat-of-battle pelki. Nothing was quite like it. This was almost as good, and in some ways better. Never before had he broken a har who he hated with such an intense, personal passion. Now that he was finally here on top of him, he could admit to what he felt. He wasn’t indifferent to Lianvis, far from it. He fucking despised him. 

He despised him for knowing what had happened to Jarad, and for wanting Jarad even after. He despised him for seeking Jarad out for sex; for trying to heal him, and for pretending to do so out of altruism and even love. He knew damn well what Lianvis had wanted, why he’d been so disgustingly fucking eager to get that soume-lam back into commission. 

~~ It was obvious. He must have thought I was fucking fool, not to see what he was doing, not to know, even when he was nosing around like a dog trying to sniff my genitals. Couldn’t wait to have me, the way I’d been had, by _ so many _ and  _ all at once _ , too, because Lianvis just couldn’t  _ stand _ to be left out, could he? He had to have what everyhar else had, had to be in on everything, the trendy little shit. And if he couldn’t have it first, he had to have it last, flaunt it, show it off, make sure everyhar knew it was  _ his _ . Better yet he’d get to look virtuous for it, for wanting  _ me _ when I was damaged goods, for trying to help me when nohar else would and I didn’t even fucking  _ want _ to be helped, no, he couldn’t just leave me alone where I was, to die in peace when I got around to it. I was on to him. I’d been on to him from the start. I saw through him the moment his friends surrounded me behind the club, and for some strange reason, Lianvis, who was always there, always in the thick of it, suddenly  _ wasn’t _ .  ~~

~~ I closed my eyes, and tightened my arm across his windpipe, and thrust into him with all the fury and hatred that I’ve got, which, if you’ve been paying attention, you know is a lot.  ~~

~~_ Down, boy. Stay dead, Jarad. Stay dead _ .  ~~

* * *

I had tried to escape, and that… that was what finally made him want me. I should have known. I should have understood, but I hadn’t. I was helpless. My knowledge of the occult had fled, and I was a panicked seventeen year old again. I know I wept. His arm across my throat was a terrible comfort. I deserved this, didn’t I? If not for what I had unwittingly caused to happen to Jarad, then for all the things I had done since.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped, because I must have done something wrong to deserve this, because I must not deserve this because so much of me still wanted him. 

“Please,” I babbled, not knowing whether I wanted mercy, death or for him to never ever stop. My heart beat for him. My lungs filled with air at his whim. “Please, I’m sorry, please.”

* * *

There was only the pleading voice, the rhythm of thrusting, the unwilling hole that clenched around the throbbing ‘lim. In all of that, Ponclast lost himself and found himself again. He focused on the hot, seething core of his hate, the fire in his belly that kept him going when there was no other light in the world. That flame, fed on atrocities, sustained him. It was all that sustained him. 

He redoubled his assault, quickened his thrusts. If Lianvis did not bleed, indeed, if he was not already bleeding, then there was no point. Ponclast needed him to see red in the water tomorrow morning when he went to relieve himself. He needed him to ache, and tremble, and fear. 

His climax was building, a crescendo of vicious satisfaction. He clamped his hand over Lianvis’ mouth and plunged in one last time. The orgasm broke over him, his aren surging, venomous and molten, into his victim’s bowels. He clenched his teeth against his own scream, allowing it to escape only as a hiss. 

He stayed there, breathing hard, as his ouana-lim softened. Once he’d caught his breath he pulled out and stood up, shaking a few stray droplets off onto Lianvis’ raw and lacerated back. 

“You were right,” he said. “You are a better roon than before.” 

He tucked himself back into his trousers, zipped up, and went to fix himself a drink. “Want anything?” He asked sardonically of the prone har on the floor. 

Lianvis just lay there. Ponclast shrugged and sipped his cognac, paying him no further attention. 

When he put down the empty glass, Lianvis was still lying where he had left him. Clearly some sort of intervention would be necessary. Ponclast sighed loudly.  _ How tiresome. _

“May I get up, Lordra?” Lianvis mumbled against the carpet. 

Ponclast arched a brow. “I think you’d better. I’ve no intention of letting you stay the night.” 

He watched with detached amusement as Lianvis peeled himself off the ground. His chest was rug burned, his hair a wild tangle, and there was a look in his eyes that said he was not entirely there. 

“You should really clean up,” Ponclast said. “Feel free to use the shower.”

Dazedly, Lianvis nodded, and headed into the bathroom. Something made Ponclast follow. 

He found Lianvis staring at himself in the mirror as if he didn’t recognize his own face. Ponclast looped an arm around him from behind and kissed him on the side of his neck, lewdly flicking his tongue against the skin. Lianvis allowed this. He even leaned into it a little, and gently closed his eyes. 

“Into the shower with you,” said Ponclast briskly, pulling away. “I’ll join, if you don’t mind.” This last was a private joke. What, after all, was Lianvis going to do at this point? Kick him out?

Lianvis obediently stepped into the shower and turned it on while Ponclast undressed. It was rare that he let another har see him naked, but Lianvis had seen him before, when he was Jarad, and he wanted him to witness the difference. Jarad had been slim and willowy, mostly lacking in definition. Soft. Ponclast was hard, his muscles well-knit, his torso tapering from shoulders to hips in an inverse triangle. His body had been forged in the infernos of war. He let himself admire it in the mirror for a moment, though he resisted the urge to flex. Such peacocking was undignified, and even a little feminine in his opinion. 

He stepped into the shower, and found that the water was freezing cold. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Viss?” He asked in disgust of the har who stood shivering in the stream. He knew, of course. Mortification of the flesh. Self-punishment after a trauma. It was so very predictable and trite. He had no time for it. 

He adjusted the taps to a more acceptable temperature, and commenced soaping Lianvis’ back. He knew that it would sting, but it was better, after all, for the wounds to be cleaned. Viss didn’t lift a finger to help him. That irritated him slightly.

“Now do me,” he instructed, handing Lianvis the soap. 

“Yes, Lordra,” the har said dreamily, and complied. His touch as he lathered Ponclast’s body was both frightened and worshipful. 

When they were clean, Ponclast turned off the water and dried Lianvis with a fluffy towel. The wounds had begun to weep again, and left pink smudges on the white terrycloth, but that wasn’t an issue. Forever had competent staff who presumably knew how to use bleach. Ponclast dried off quickly, wrapped himself in a robe and exited, leaving Lianvis still wringing out his long hair. 

He took so long to emerge from the bathroom that Ponclast began to think he was hiding. He was about to go rap on the door when Lianvis finally came out. He was naked, his head bowed. He stood there in the center of the room, as if waiting for something. 

“Ah,” said Ponclast, “you’ll be needing a robe.” Lianvis’ garments lay in ribbons on the floor. As amusing as it was to contemplate making him do the walk of shame lady Godiva-style, it probably wouldn’t be good for Varr-Kakkahaar diplomatic relations. Ponclast went to his wardrobe and pulled out a satin kimono that he rarely wore. It had been a gift from somehar who didn’t know his taste well, received here at Forever last Natalia. He’d just left it here. He draped it over Lianvis, dressing him like a doll, and carefully tied it in the front. 

“Good night,” he said, pushing him toward the door. Just at the threshold he stopped, and placed a brief kiss on his lips. Then he opened the door and ushered him out into the hall.

* * *

His body against mine in the bathroom was so warm. My weakness was an ornament to his strength. He wasn’t precisely gentle, but his adjusting the water when I had turned it on brutally cold, the way he washed my back melted me. I knew it was absurd. He’d violated me, pinned me down and had me against my will, but even so I was so absurdly grateful. I was in a dream state, my body still thrumming with the mixture of fear and desire. 

I don’t recall exactly how long I stared at my bare face in the bathroom mirror. Part of me wanted to mutilate myself. I wanted to do the sorts of things I did to my own victims. I considered slashing up the lovely face he’d left so considerately intact. It was pointless of course, a silly idea that would only serve to reinforce everything he thought of me.

He dressed me in a robe, soft as silk against my battered flesh, and kissed me before sending me away. I knew I’d be back. The kiss had ensured it.


	2. The Second Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shame is a powerful weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that the forms of humiliation in this chapter touch on body image and sexual desirability in ways that could be upsetting.

Ponclast was in excellent spirits when he came down to breakfast the next morning. He had a lie-in—unusual for him—and appeared at the breakfast table only when all the others had already begun to eat. He looked fresh and well-rested, with a telltale spring in his step. All present recognized the signs. The ouana-hara smiled knowingly, and the soume-hara shrank back as if they wished they could disappear. Ponclast, the apex predator, was satiated.

Lianvis looked up, startled, as he came in. They briefly locked eyes—Lianvis’ gaze feverish with lust and terror, Ponclast’s regard as cold as ever—before Lianvis quickly looked down at his plate. Ponclast noted the livid bruises on his neck with monstrous satisfaction. 

“Did you have a good night, Lordra?” Terzian asked. 

Ponclast smiled, allowing his gaze to linger on Lianvis, and answered, “Yes.” 

Terzian followed his look, and his lips thinned slightly. Ponclast knew he would be sulking all day. _Cunt,_ he thought passionlessly, _that’s what you get for denying me here._

“I hope you don’t mind that we started without you, Lordra,” said Cobweb. “We thought we’d let you sleep.” 

“Very kind of you,” said Ponclast. He was practically jovial. It was eerie. 

Bryony came to pour him coffee. Ponclast dealt her a slap on the rump as she turned away. Her back stiffened, and the Varrish generals laughed uproariously. Paying such attention to a woman was delightfully outre, a punchline all on its own. 

“The trouble with humes is that they’re single use,” Ponclast commented. 

Cobweb made a soft noise of distaste.

“Don’t look so sour,” Ponclast told him. “I was only joking. Tiahaar Lianvis knows what I’m talking about. Don’t you, Tiahaar?”

Lianvis managed an arched brow and a suitably cryptic smile. “I believe you are referring to the Mysteries. It is better not to discuss them by the light of day.”

“And especially not over breakfast,” Cobweb added drily. 

Ponclast contemplated Cobweb. He was lovely—not exactly the archon’s type, insofar as he had one, but he wouldn’t kick him out of bed. More importantly, he was an excellent consort—astute, poised, and adept at hosting pearls and parties. Terzian didn’t really deserve him. He was just the sort of ornament Fulminir needed. 

Of course, if Ponclast ever took a consort, it should be a har with clout and connections. Somehar who could cement an important alliance… he glanced speculatively down the table at the Kakkahaar. 

Lianvis, of course, was the tempting one, but it would be impractical. He had his own duties as acting archon. As amusing as it might be to take the leader of the Kakkahaar and reduce him to a trophy, it wouldn’t be good for cohesion. It might even cause a coup among the desert hara. Perhaps Viss could suggest somehar else. Many of the Kakkahaar resembled him strongly—his blood was strong, and left its mark on his inceptees. He could be easily persuaded to hand over a reasonable facsimile of himself. Then he’d have to live with knowing that Ponclast was using his substitute in all the ways he longed to be used.

Lianvis, he now noticed, was somewhat muted today. He had apparently skipped makeup and had tied back his long hair so it wouldn’t be so noticeable. His garments were in drab earth tones. Camouflage? Protective coloration? _Pathetic_. He was obviously trying to look as ouana as he could, in order to be less of a target.

“Are you feeling well, Tiahaar Lianvis?” Ponclast asked. “You look tired.”

Lianvis barely flinched. Probably nohar but Ponclast noticed. “I didn’t sleep well,” he answered smoothly. “It’s a little chilly for me here.”

“I’m so sorry to hear,” Ponclast returned. “Don’t be shy about ringing for a househar. I’m sure they’ll be glad to add more logs to your fire.” 

Lianvis inclined his head. “I’ll keep it in mind, Tiahaar.” 

Ponclast fell silent, and focused on enjoying his breakfast. For the rest of the meal, he listened to the conversation more than he spoke, and observed, with vindictive amusement, the mounting animosity of Terzian towards Lianvis. It didn’t worry him, even though Terzian had been such a pain about the Kakkahaar alliance. This was a new kind of hatred—personal, not political. Terzian knew that Ponclast had subjugated Lianvis in bed, and this had the predictable effect of making him both less threatened by Kakkahaar power, and also achingly sexually jealous. That was exactly how Ponclast wanted him. 

Though Ponclast had been last to seat himself, he was also first to finish eating and rise from the table. 

“Excuse me, Tiahaara,” he said. “I have an errand to run in Galhea.” 

Terzian stood as well. “Allow me to accompany you, Lordra.”

They exchanged a glance. Ponclast sighed. He couldn’t go anywhere alone. There were enemies everywhere, even here in Galhea. He didn’t live in fear, but he also wasn’t fool enough to give an assassin an opening. Somehar always had to watch his back. It was the price he paid for his status, and he accepted it. But he didn’t want Terzian with him this morning. The har craved his attention. His bruised ego wanted soothing, and Ponclast wasn’t in the mood. 

“No,” said Ponclast. “Let me borrow Ithiel. You should stay and entertain our guests.” 

Terzian inclined his head in acquiescence. “Yes, Lordra.” 

Ponclast excused himself with a polite nod, and went to retrieve the shreds of Lianvis’ garment from last night. He’d have Ithiel show him the best tailor in Galhea, preferably whoever Cobweb used. He’d put in a rush order. It might not be an easy job, but he imagined the archon of the Varrs could get a replica of the ruined robe delivered to Forever by mid-afternoon. 

* * *

  
Breakfast at least assured me he’d enjoyed himself that night. That was a comfort. I’d had healing the night before, performed by one of my attendants who was clever enough not to ask questions. I’d tried to look less soume that day, pulling my hair back into a severe braid, eschewing makeup and dressing in more subdued robes. Of course, he noticed and made a comment that while it sounded innocuous enough to the others, made it perfectly clear he’d noticed my attempt to be less… _provocative_ that day. It had been silly, of course. I could see that now. The wrong tack exactly. I should have known better, but the thought of him looking at me the way he had the night before in front of everyone was unbearable; not least because I knew perfectly well that if he had given me that look I wouldn’t have been able to help going back to bed with him.

It turned out I couldn’t help it anyway. I always wonder if it was the tailor’s fault I did go back, that perfectly worked identical copy of the garment Ponclast had destroyed the night before, laying on my bed. It wasn’t an apology, but it was something, and when I tried it on, the delicate material felt like a caress against my skin. It was probably precisely the reaction he wanted, a scrap (how apt a word for that minimal garment) to bait his trap and lure me again to doom.

Of course I went back. 

After dinner, I dressed myself in nothing more than golden chains and bright jewels, painted my face, dressed my hair and applied perfume. The costume didn’t make me feel powerful now, not here, not with him. It made me feel like a whore. I wrapped the robe he had so gently put on me the night before about myself for the short journey to my intended destination. I was ashamed to be going back. What was I thinking returning there after what had happened? I knew only that I had to go, was compelled as strongly as I had been compelled by his grip on my arm the first night. So I went and let myself into that dragon’s lair and knelt again, by the bed.

“I hate that I’m here…” I said, not looking at him, “Lordra,” I added as I felt his gaze on me.

“But you’re here anyway,” he said arching an eyebrow at me, “you enjoyed last night, didn’t you?”

I closed my eyes. “I don’t know, Lordra, I just--” I shook my head. 

“Soume hara are always such gluttons for punishment,” he said. I hated him applying that category to me. I was as harrish as he was. I had been as much a human man as he had been (so a boy really, but still). 

“I’m not ‘soume hara’, I rarely take the passive role outside of grissecon.”

“And last night was grissecon then?”

“You could call it that,” I replied.

* * *

Ponclast was unsurprised when Lianvis turned up in his bedroom. It was utterly predictable, like everything else he did. His little dalliance with masculinity this morning and his reversion to sultry soume tonight were both beats in the same tired melodrama, and it was all moving towards the same inevitable denouement, wherein he would end up swooning in Ponclast’s arms. _Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn._

“And what, pray tell, was the goal of this grissecon?” Ponclast he derisively. “To win my heart? To heal my blasted soul?”

“To shed my ego,” Lianvis replied. His eyes glinted with humor, but his tone was bitterly self-deprecating. 

Ponclast raised a brow, and he added, “Lordra.”

“Fetch me a drink,” Ponclast ordered. 

“Yes, Lordra.” Lianvis rose obediently. Ponclast watched with detached appreciation as Lianvis moved across the room, his graceful hips swaying provocatively. “What would you like, Lordra?” He asked as he reached the liquor cabinet. 

“Sheh,” Ponclast replied. “It’s too early for anything else.” 

Lianvis poured. Ponclast thought of Ganymede, captive cup-bearer to the king of the gods.

“If the working may be termed a success, it has been a delayed reaction,” he remarked. “I noticed your pathetic attempt to save your pride at breakfast. You looked about as ouana as that bitch housekeeper, and anyway, I can smell a cunt at fifty paces.”

Lianvis flushed. He returned with the cup and knelt to present it. Ponclast noticed that his hands were shaking. 

“Your back has healed,” he observed. “Considerate of you to provide me with a clean canvas.” 

Lianvis shuddered, and his eyes gently closed. 

“Whatever did your healer say?” Ponclast asked archly.

“Nothing, Lordra,” murmured Lianvis. “He knows his place.”

“Indeed. Must be a Kakkahaar trait.” Ponclast smirked, and sipped his sheh. It warmed his belly as he felt his ‘lim begin to harden. He savored the liquor as he savored his own anticipation. 

His eyes raked over Lianvis, taking in the artful makeup, the chains, the jewels. 

“You look better,” he said dispassionately—not so much a left-handed compliment as a back-handed one. 

Lianvis flinched. “Does it please you, Lordra?” His voice was very small.

Ponclast knocked back the rest of his sheh. “No,” he said bluntly. “Take it all off.” 

* * *

When he ordered me to remove my adornments, I nodded and did as I was told. All of it felt dirty anyway. I did it in the bathroom, scrubbing away at kohl and carmine, removing rings and earrings and necklaces, braiding back my hair so I could not hide behind it. Somehow in spite of his comment, this felt better. No mascara to run, hair out of the way, no jewels to dig in when he was on top of me. I was an athlete, a warrior, an amazon prepared for whatever he might dish out. I had put off my fragility with the delicate jewelry and readily smeared makeup.

I walked back in to his torture chamber of a bedroom oddly unselfconscious, and stood before him.

I don’t think I had reacted quite as he’d expected.

“Hm,” he said looking me over with cold eyes, “turn.”

I turned.

“I can’t understand what Jarad saw in you… aside from being easy.”

I nodded, eyes cast down.

“You’re not even particularly pretty. You act like you are, which seems to work on a lot of hara--but you’re nothing special.”

I should have known better than to let it affect me. He’d called me beautiful just the night before, and I’d seen the heat in his eyes myself, but somehow it pierced me, a shot to the heart. The one thing I’d thought I might have to offer him, my last hope for being desirable for more than my capacity to suffer.

“I’ll go, Lordra,” I said softly, turning to go.

He laughed and caught me by the hair.

“You think you can just go?”

“No, Lordra, I just thought you didn’t want--”

“No, you need to learn your place. Besides, I believe I inherited a debt to you. You could consider this repayment for the favor you did me by bringing Jarad back to Oomar,” he said, dragging me back to him, his clothed body hard against my back. He felt so different from Jarad, hard muscle under heavy leather, rather than coltish boniness under cotton or denim or even leather but that was motorcycle jacket leather, softened by wear, not… this stiff, impeccable uniform.

* * *

Lianvis shuddered in Ponclast’s grip. He was weakness and surrender made flesh. Ponclast relished his fear as he ran his figures lightly over the nude, quivering body. His gloves were of the type policemen used to wear for body searches, made of exquisitely thin leather. He could feel through them nearly as well as he could feel with bare hands, and in fact he preferred this slightly muted sensation. It made his every touch seem more invasive to his prejudices, while protecting him from feeling sullied. 

His ‘lim was stiff. He ground it against Lianvis’ ass for a few moments, leather against living skin. Then he spun the har around to face him. He shoved his gloved fingers once more into the dripping cavity between Lianvis’ legs. The leather came away soaked with creamy fluid. Ponclast dealt Viss a slap in the face with the sticky glove, smearing the yaloe across his cheek. 

“You reek,” he told him. “It’s disgusting.” 

Lianvis flushed, and his eyes squeezed shut in shame. “I’m sorry, Lordra.” 

Ponclast, in truth, was far from repulsed. He wanted to lick his gloved fingers and then throw Lianvis down on the bed, bury his face between his thighs, and devour his ‘lam and its juices until the har writhed and screamed in a series of desperate orgasms. But he held off, taking pleasure in his self-restraint. No power thrilled him quite so much as that of self-mastery. To let desire and fury build within him until it seemed that not even he would be able to hold it back, but continue to hold, and hold, releasing only at the moment he chose… that was real strength, the true essence of ouana. 

“At least you have a sense of shame,” he said, “if nothing else.” 

Lianvis opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, Ponclast threw him onto the bed, face down. He was on top of him in an instant, jamming his knee into the small of his back to hold him in place. He unbuckled his belt and slid it through the loops, doubling it over to make it a tool of pain, just like so many hara’s human fathers used to do, though strangely never his. He wondered idly if Lianvis ever got the belt. He could always tell, once he started a beating, who had and who hadn’t. The ones who hadn’t were more shocked by the pain, but the ones who had broke apart on the inside. He preferred the latter. 

“Pay attention,” Ponclast said, “If you can. Try to get this into your head. It’s important. Are you listening?”

“Yes, Lordra,” mumbled Lianvis against the sheets.

“You’re a cunt,” Ponclast enunciated. “That’s all you are to me. It’s all you should be to anyhar.”

He felt Lianvis’ shoulders stiffen beneath his knee. Savage satisfaction warmed him. His aim, as always, was true. 

“Cunts aren’t pretty. Not when you really look at them. But they have their uses.” His fist tightened around the belt as he readied himself to strike. “Tonight, I’m going to show you what you’re good for. It should be enlightening, since you’re so keen to dissolve your ego.”

He raised the strap of leather, and then, with all the strength of his right arm, brought it down across Lianvis’ ass. 

* * *

How could he be hard for me? He was right. I felt in my bones he was right. I was nothing but a cunt, an orifice he might use for relief. Interchangeable with any other. My body was an unclean thing, something he wouldn’t touch without gloves. I stank of sex, and without adornment, what might have seemed sensual about me became repugnant, chewed food, a used condom, too corporeal, too animal. He hit me and I hardly felt it. I wanted to leave my body more desperately than I ever had during those desert nights where the meaninglessness of everything had driven me to unspeakable atrocity.

“Thank you, Lordra,” the reply was automatic. I might as well have been hume at that point, a vile body, untouchable. The way he spoke to me made me want to tear off my skin. “I’m not pretty, I shouldn’t try to be, Lordra.”

Another strike, another, and another, til I lost count. I heard myself yelp but was hardly aware of the pain. I don’t even know if I wept. 

* * *

Ponclast sensed that Lianvis was vacating his body. This happened frequently with his victims. Unable to escape him physically, they fled in spirit to deny him his satisfaction. He had experience dealing with this problem. For some hara, a dash of cold water to the face could bring them back. Lianvis would need something different.

Ponclast set aside the belt and briskly flipped Lianvis onto his back. He lowered himself onto him, covering his shivering nakedness with his own leather-sheathed mass.

“Viss,” he commanded. “Look at me.” 

Lianvis’ eyes fluttered open and stared vacantly. Behind them, he was still mostly absent. Tears stained his face.

Ponclast slapped him lightly on the cheek. “See me,” he said. “See who I am.”

Lianvis drew a shaky breath, and seemed to come more into focus. “I see you, Lordra.” 

Ponclast leaned down and covered his mouth with his own, invading him with breath and saliva and tongue. His fingers crept between Lianvis’ thighs, and located the first sikra with practiced efficiency. He rubbed it expertly, intent on inflicting pleasure too intense to pull away from. With this, he would compel Viss back into his freshly prison. 

“You’re meat,” he mumbled into Lianvis’ open mouth. “Stay in your body and take it for me.” 

* * *

His kiss dragged me back into my awful body. How could he kiss a creature like me? A botched inception, even if my deformity was not at first obvious to the eye. I was like Watchful, a half dissolved caterpillar who had never become a butterfly, trapped eternally in Althaia. My dripping viscous ‘lam, the carnal/charnal stench of me, I knew he was right, but for him I stayed and I took it. The pleasure was horrible. I felt only more disgust for myself as I grew wetter, more excited by his touch. I wished I could make myself cease responding, train my body to understand when it was receiving pleasure it didn’t deserve, but it was greedy, muscles gulping hungrily around his fingers as he opened me expertly up.

“Thank you, Lordra,” was all I could say. I am fairly certain I was crying by then, producing more unseemly fluids with my undisciplined abject body, snot and tears. At least he was wearing gloves. He made me melt for him, even as I felt nauseous at the thought of how I must look, a piece of meat, probably half rotten by now anyway. I had not even freshness to recommend me. I was used and dirty, and this har, who looked like a marble statue, was touching me.

I know I whimpered, made unlovely little plaintive sounds of pleasure as I babbled about how he ought to find some har else for the night, how he deserved better than me, about how he ought to just let me leave so I wouldn’t dirty his sheets any more than I already had.

* * *

Ponclast watched with vicious pleasure as Lianvis came apart for him. He had found the tender spots in Lianvis’ psyche just as easily as he found the sikras in his ‘lam, and he probed both with the same ruthless efficiency. His hand had nearly disappeared into Lianvis at this point, the orifice gulping as if desperate to swallow him whole. He was working on the fourth sikra—he kept careful count, always, when opening up a har—and Lianvis was squirming and mewling in a panic, something idiotic about ruining his lovely gloves.

“Yes,” Ponclast agreed coolly. “Fortunately, I have dozens of pairs.”

He twisted his hand deftly, curling his fingers forward towards Lianvis’ pelvic bone. His soume-lam seized and a gush of clear liquid poured from it with such force that some splattered Ponclast’s uniform. Lianvis shrieked with miserable pleasure, his body arching off the sheets. The sight of him was mesmerizing. He was not beautiful now, with his face contorted in ecstasy, flushed with shame, and streaked with sweat and tears, but he was something better than beautiful. He was sublime. 

Ponclast allowed nothing to show in his face. He was rock hard inside his trousers, and his spirit was transported by the kind of rapture a great symphony might inspire, but he looked merely bored.

“Do you know what I’m doing?” He asked. “I’m opening you up for breeding.” 

“ _Me_?” Lianvis gasped. His eyes were wide in shock and consternation. “Oh, Lordra, you mustn’t, please…”

Ponclast understood perfectly. Lianvis was not protesting out of unwillingness to host a pearl. It was merely that, at the moment, he was thoroughly convinced of his unworthiness. 

“You _are_ inferior stock,” Ponclast agreed casually, his forefinger already massaging the next sikra. “But having a son of mine in line to be archon of Kakkahaar might make up for that.”

* * *

  
My ‘lam gushed lewdly around his fingers, and I was helpless to hold back the needy animalistic noises the pleasure dragged from me, and then he asked me if I knew what he was doing.

He was preparing my body for breeding. The thought of him debasing himself like that with _me_ was obscene in the worst way. I wondered then how it was that I felt myself so dirtied by my own atrocities before him, and yet for all that I knew he had done, he seemed so clean. His cruelty was cleansing fire administered with icy dispassionate distance, and so he remained unsullied. I was a filthy thing, and he was teaching me my place.

“I should abdicate,” I said when he suggested my position might justify defiling himself with me, “choose somehar more appropriate, better stock.” 

I couldn’t understand why I was there, why he had let me in. I shrank from the memory of the night before, when I had been so confident of my own charms. I had worn so little, dressed as if I had a right to try to seduce him. No wonder he hadn’t stopped when I’d said no, I’d been so presumptuous to ask for him in the first place. He’d tried to teach me a lesson, and I hadn’t listened. I should have known better.

He laughed.

“Why complicate things? Besides, I have plenty of bastards by unimportant sluts, so it’s not as if you’d be unique.”

“Yes, Lordra,” I replied. What use was it to protest? And who was I to reject such charity? “If that is what you want, Lordra.”

His fingers moved inside me, another Sikra blossomed against leather, and I moaned low. I wanted his ‘lim so badly, and hated myself for wanting what I so little deserved. I pictured myself, belly rounded with his pearl in my tent in the desert… or would he bring me to Fulminir for that? No, his desert bastard would be born where it belonged, on carpets covering shifting sands.

Would I love or hate such a creature? Love it because it was his, or loathe it for the debased half that was mine?

* * *

Ponclast judged him ready. Lianvis’ whole body was like a live wire, crackling with the current of unbearable pleasure. He was fully open. 

Ponclast yanked his hand out of the spasmimg soume-lam and peeled off his sodden glove, tossing it onto Lianvis’ face. 

“Thank you, Lordra.” The words came right on cue. 

Ponclast smirked. He stood, and proceeded to undress. He usually preferred to take aruna in his leathers. He felt most powerful and barbaric when he was wrapped in the hides of dead creatures. But tonight he was in the mood to show off. Let his beauty shine in stark contrast to the ugliness Lianvis imagined in himself. 

He removed his tie, unbuttoned his coat and his shirt with precise, calculated motions, and stepped from his high riding boots. Finally, he unzipped his trousers, holding Lianvis’ gaze as he did so. Lianvis sighed as if his heart was breaking when he pushed them down his hips and allowed them to fall to the floor. Ponclast took a moment to let him stare, reveling in what he knew to be his own magnificence, before carefully folding his uniform and setting it aside on a chair. 

He thought about vanity. Most hara had it, Ponclast less than most. He had very little pride in his face. He was aware he was considered attractive, even beautiful, but never really felt that he was. His face was just something he’d been born with, and then had immensely improved by inception. He hadn’t earned it, or come by it through any effort of his own. His body was another matter. That was his own creation. Every taut muscle that stood out represented hours upon hours of straining effort.

He got back on the bed and mounted Lianvis, pushing the other har’s legs up over his shoulders so that his ‘lam was presented to him in the most vulnerable possible fashion. Then he aimed his ‘lim and slid inside.

He had to close his eyes and clench his teeth to stand the pleasure. Lianvis felt indescribable, hot and wet and clenching so greedily on his shaft. The throbbing nubs of the open sikras provided exquisite texture. He stayed still for a moment, breathing deeply and savoring the sensation, drawing out his own anticipation just a little longer before he began to thrust. 

Lianvis whimpered and trembled beneath him. 

* * *

He was so beautiful I could hardly bear to look at him. That body, so perfectly chiseled. His face, like a classical sculpture, so impassive even as he looked at the needy mess he’d made of me. His undressing was so efficient, so utterly not a striptease that it became one. His clinical precision just served again to underline the difference between us. I was disgustingly carnal, slovenly and uncontrolled where he was perfect, cold and meticulous. He had to close his eyes when he took me, but I was still grateful that he did. It was terrible bliss to have him inside me. His flesh should have burned me like holy water would some unclean thing, but it only made me writhe with inner fire.

“Please, please,” I whined. I had never meant my pleading so sincerely. I was a beggar entreating alms from the king. I had nothing to offer but words in return for what he gave me, so I tried at least to make them true. I told him how little I deserved him; how unworthy I was; how now I understood what had happened the night before; how grateful I was for stripping me of my self deluding vanity.

I needed him, and that need disgusted me. He had me in that position, my body so painfully exposed. 

* * *

Ponclast buried his teeth in Lianvis’ throat. His thrusts were deep and brutal, his ‘lim cruel as a weapon. He needed Viss to feel impaled, stabbed. He thirsted for his screams. 

~~Ag, he is so beautiful. The curves and planes of his body are like desert dunes carved by the wind. And his hair… I could drown in the river of his hair. Every har always wanted him, and now here I am. What the fuck? How can _I_ be inside him? I’m a mess, a monster. Hungry and thirsty, always, _always,_ for flesh and blood. My fists are always clenching, my teeth always want to bite and tear. If I don’t do it the aggression starts to turn inward and I find myself with my knife at my own throat. I cut my hair short so I can’t tear it out. I wear the gloves so my nails don’t dig into my hands. ~~

~~Ignore the dead boy. Ignore the screaming in your head. I’m not here. I’m nohar. Just a ghost.~~

He sank his teeth into Lianvis’ shoulder, and then the side of his neck. He needed to bruise him, mark him, claim his territory. It pleased him to think that he had now conquered every hole-- his throat, his ass, and the best saved for last, his soume-lam, his pretty harrish cunt. Too bad he didn’t have more orifices to claim. Ponclast imagined making more, with his long hunting knife--in Viss’s belly perhaps, or straight through his chest so he could fuck his beating heart. He nearly came from the thought. 

His hands fastened around the graceful throat, and squeezed. Lianvis’ eyes bulged and a vein stood out on his brow as his face turned red, then purple. Inside him, Ponclast’s ‘lim throbbed in answer. He spat generously onto the livid face, beauty rendered almost ugly by lack of oxygen. 

“Cunt,” he sneered. “Do you begin to grasp your purpose?” 

Lianvis tried to nod, but was hampered by the strong hands wrapping his neck. Ponclast judged he was about to lose his grip on consciousness. He let go, to allow a few desperate gasps, then grabbed hold again and applied the pressure more aggressively than before. As he did, he felt Lianvis begin to clench and spasm violently around him. He laughed out loud. 

“You sick bitch,” he said. “You’re actually cumming from this.” 

The contractions massaging his ‘lim were almost too much. He wanted to let go, to allow the snapping cunt to wring out his own climax, but with a massive effort of will, he managed to hold back. Not yet. He needed more. He wanted to make Lianvis cum on his ‘lim until cumming hurt, and then cum some more, and then some more until he thought he might die. Nothing less would satisfy him. So he shifted his angle, redoubled his thrusts, and felt his ouana-tongue snake out and strike into the heart of a sikra deep inside. 

* * *

I came on him, vileness wrapped tight around perfection, Klipa around Sephira. “Yes,” I cried, because I did. This was all I was, an object, a receptacle, not even decorative or truly pleasurable. Utilitarian. A nothing. His ouana-tongue inside me, invading me was delight beyond delight, and agony beyond agony. I wanted nothing more than to be his, but how could he want me? I wept as my body spasmed around his ‘lim. This was beyond aruna. He’d been right all those years before, this transcended aruna in its grime and rawness. This was what fucking wished it could be. There was no word for this act and none could contain it. I was lost.

I don’t know how many times he brought me to shuddering, painful climax. It seemed to last for eternity. If we had been there for a week I wouldn’t have been surprised. I hated it, but in those moments of crystalline shattering bliss. I broke enough that I forgot what I was and so I needed him to make me break again and again and again. I wanted to cling to him, but I couldn’t so I balled my fists in the coverlet instead.

“Lordra,” I cried, “Lordra.” Again and again until the word turned to mindless screams. He was merciless and that was the greatest mercy he could give me.

What could I do but give him the unworthy gift of my body? Jarad, Ponclast… _Lordra_ , always my Lordra even when he hadn’t known it, even when I’d believed him dead, even before the word had been invented. I looked up at him, praying for some hint of tenderness in his eyes. There was none of course, but there was fire. Desire for pleasure if not for me.

* * *

It was pathetically obvious that Lianvis was desperate for Ponclast to cum inside him. He craved that pearl of great worth, however little he felt he deserved it. Ponclast wanted to do it—needed to, almost. Still he held off. 

He was mildly surprised at his own performance and stamina. When he’d been Jarad, he had possessed no special arunic talents. He’d been fun, like anyhar, and a lot of hara had had fun with him. He had only known about aruna then. With the addition of cruelty and the application of force, he had unlocked a monstrous, unsuspected potency that had lain dormant within him. With the right victim, he’d found he could reach a kind of berserker frenzy that let him go harder, faster, and longer than was entirely reasonable. Aruna was nothing, not compared to pelki.

An idea struck him, an erotic image of blistering intensity that sprang to his mind fully formed. He had to give it substance. 

It wasn’t easy to retract his ouana-tongue and make himself pull out, but he did it. His ‘lim, slick with viscous fluids, twitched as with a mind of its own. He grabbed Lianvis by the shoulder and flipped him over onto his belly. 

Lianvis gasped in relief or disappointment at the withdrawal, looking back over his shoulder. He was a mess, eyes red from crying, Ponclast’s spittle dried on his cheeks. Ponclast dealt him a slap. 

“Eyes down,” he snapped. “Don’t look at me.”

“Yes, Lordra,” Lianvis murmured, and quickly averted his gaze.

Ponclast reached for his knife, and laid it, sheathed, on the bed beside them. He was itching to draw it, to admire its deadly edge, but there was something he had to do first. He re-entered Lianvis, pushing into his ‘lam from behind. The har made a choking noise that sounded like and might have been a sob. Ponclast thrust into him lazily, desultorily, as he drew his knife. It glinted in the low light of the room. 

He knew knives scared Lianvis in a very special way. He’d noticed that the night before. He imagined making Viss’ worst fears real—driving the blade between his victim’s shoulders and blowing his load while the har vomited blood all over the pillows. The thought brought a smile to his lips, but alas, it must not be. The geopolitical implications would be disastrous. Besides, he had something else in mind. 

His hand was steady as he drew the sharp tip across the skin of Lianvis’ lower back. Blood blossomed slowly, as happens with fine cuts from a razor edge. Lianvis whined in pain, and went very still. Ponclast was glad he was smart enough not to squirm. It made the project easier. He fucked him very slowly and shallowly as he worked, just enough to keep himself hard—although frankly, with the way the sight of the blood was affecting him, that wasn’t a real concern. 

He carved the words with great care, forming each letter expertly. He added little slices of serifs just to see even more scarlet well up and bead upon the golden skin, like little rubies on silk.

“Wait until your healer sees this,” he breathed. “I wonder if he’ll still know his place once he understands yours.” 

* * *

I gasped in shock at the loss of his lim’, and in turning to look at him I earned a slap across the face. I kept my gaze down and didn’t question him. The first cut shocked me, but I didn’t flinch. I was smart enough, at least, for that. He was writing something, that much I knew. The lines felt like letters. I could only imagine what obscene graffiti he might be scrawling on my back, the kind of thing that used to show up sharpied onto bathroom stalls, lewd and cruel. If it was as bad as I thought, no, I wouldn’t dare go to the healer. How could I explain such a thing? By that point the pain, the sharp sting of the knife slicing into me hardly bothered me anymore. Mortification of the flesh, exactly what I deserved. I was more concerned with what the words might be. Would they scar? Would I bear the mark of this night forever?

* * *

Ponclast finished inscribing his message on Viss’s flesh. As a final flourish, he drew the knife sharply across the breadth of his back in a horizontal stroke, underlining what he had written. Blood welled more swiftly from that long, fluid cut. He dipped his fingers in it, sucked them clean. The taste was sublime. 

He grabbed Lianvis’ hips and began to rut in him savagely. It would not be long, now. He needed to cum with that metallic tang still in his mouth. Lianvis shrieked and moaned in helpless, mounting ecstasy, words of self-debasement and adoration pouring from his mouth like froth from the lips of a horse ridden hard.

“I love you!” He sobbed, as if his heart would break, was breaking. “Lordra, I love you, I am yours!”

Those were the real bleeding words, not the slurs that Ponclast had carved onto his back.

Ponclast laughed exultantly, drunk with cruelty and his own power. He came, violently, pulling out midway to splatter his remaining aren across the weeping wounds. He hoped it stung. Seeing his jism mixed with the crimson made him light headed. He fell back onto the bed, laughing still. His whole body tingled, fizzing like champagne. He had never felt so good. There was a lightness to his spirit, an airy, expansive rapture. He could take on the whole world and win. He could break nations without breaking a sweat. 

“Get out,” he said to Lianvis.

Lianvis raised his head to look at him. His lower lip was trembling and his eyes looked bruised. He had not been bred. There had been no quickening. That, perhaps, was the greatest insult of all—to be left empty. “Lordra?”

Ponclast was suddenly filled with the most venomous contempt he had ever felt towards any har. He resented it bitterly. It threatened to ruin his amazing afterglow. 

“You heard me,” he said. “Get out. I can’t stand the sight of your fucking face.”

Lianvis stared, frozen, for an instant. Then he bolted, grabbing his belongings in an armful, not even bothering to throw on his robe, and rushed, sobbing and naked, out into the corridor. The door banged shut behind him.

Ponclast lay there a long time, just laughing from sheer bliss. Then he got himself a cigarette, and laughed some more. The chuckles returned to him periodically throughout the rest of his evening, which was brief. The assignation had left him tired and deliciously relaxed, so after he finished his smoke, he made himself ready for bed. He was still laughing when he turned off the light.

  
  



	3. The Third Night, Part 1

That night had undone me. I left hollow and shell shocked. I had told him I loved him, and he had laughed. When I left I practically ran from the room, clutching my belongings to my chest and hunching down so as to feel less visible. I had never felt so worthless, so…  _ ugly _ . 

The first thing I did when I got back to my own rooms was to twist myself into a position where I could finally read what had been written on my back. ‘Soume Cunt’ stood out in livid red against my unappetizingly sallow skin, underlined as if to make sure I got the point. 

I was a bruise, a fading sign of the world’s injury. I shunned mirrors after that last long, awful look at myself. What was there I could possibly want to see in one?

I stopped bothering with my appearance at all. I could hardly bear the sight of myself clothed, let alone naked. I took cold showers with brutal efficiency, no lingering in hot scented baths, and wondered how long my hair could go without brushing before it was such a tangle I’d have to cut it all off and start again. The thought hardly phased me. I had always taken such pride in it before, it frightened me how little I cared then. I considered hacking it as short as I could manage. It was a foolish vanity and an ornament I didn’t deserve, but that would have been noticed and couldn’t be attributed to a poor response to a disagreeable climate. 

My delegation noticed my change in demeanor even without an ill advised haircut. On the third day, Ilasi came to me trying to cheer me up, brushing out my hair and rooning me after I couldn’t manage to get ouana for him. I’d let him, and he’d been so gentle in bed, and with the tangles, so careful never to pull, I suspected he knew more about what was going on than I liked. I sat silent, staring into the distance as he tenderly braided my hair before we rooned. He’d wanted to do more, deck it with flowers or gems or… anything, hoping, I think, to make me feel pretty again, to reawaken my shattered vanity. I was horrified by the thought, why waste time and effort trying to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear. The aruna had almost made me feel worse. I could tell he pitied me, and I couldn’t help wonder who he pictured to keep his ‘lim hard with me. There was no fire in his eyes that I could see, no desperation in the way he touched me. I made sure to hide my back from him and pictured Ponclast, touching me, wanting me, finding me beautiful and felt dirtier for it.

On a rational level, I knew it wasn’t true. I was always desired. I had been called a legendary beauty, and yet what did it matter if my face could launch a thousand ships if he wasn’t on any of them.

I didn’t go back to his rooms. The idea that he might reject me, or worse that there might be some other har there with him kept me away. During the days he hardly seemed to notice me as we hammered out the remaining details of our treaty, and well I had no idea then how he spent his nights. I had started going to bed early. 

* * *

The first night that Lianvis failed to return, Ponclast was disappointed, but not surprised. Lianvis was licking his wounds, nursing his hurt pride. That was natural enough. When Ponclast had seen him earlier that day, he’d looked terrible-- exhausted, unkempt, making no effort whatsoever with his appearance. He clearly still felt like a bedraggled slut, and he looked it, too. That had amused Ponclast, and even turned him on. He assumed Lianvis would bounce back soon enough, so he could tear him down all over again. 

He looked even worse the second day, as if he hadn’t slept at all. During negotiations he was absent-minded. His own hara were clearly beginning to notice that something was up, though Ponclast didn’t think they connected it with him. If they did, that would be trouble. It might even wreck the alliance. 

When Lianvis did not appear on the second night, Ponclast was astounded, and angered. He spent his evening pacing and glancing at the clock, smoking too much and drinking far too much sheh. By one in the morning, he was considering going to Lianvis, letting himself into his room and taking him in his own bed. He did not. He felt it would be beneath him. He didn’t want Lianvis to think he could escape, but he didn’t want him thinking he was needed, either. 

~~ He’s finally figured out how broken I am. He doesn’t want me anymore. I disgust him, as well as I should. I’m a putrid thing, a walking corpse, a revenant with bloody lips. ~~

Ponclast cursed and threw his crystal tumbler against the wall. 

On the third day, Lianvis was missing from the negotiating table. Ponclast experienced a strange, sickening emotion that he eventually identified as worry. As soon as he had identified it, he quashed it mercilessly. He forced himself to take full advantage of the acting archon’s absence to push his terms more aggressively. The Kakkahaar were reluctant to commit to anything much without their leader, but Ponclast was relentless and wore them down enough to win a few concessions. The particulars weren’t even as important as the fact that he had established dominance. Now he knew the Kakkahaar could be bullied. They’d never be on equal footing with him again, and judging by the defeated look in their eyes when the meeting adjourned, they knew it too. 

Terzian was smug as a cat. Ponclast knew he had been watching him and Lianvis narrowly, green-eyed with jealousy. The Kakkahaar’s decline over the past couple of days had put a spring in his step. Ponclast wanted to take him over his knee and thrash him for being a petty little bitch. 

Dinner that night was a grand affair. Yarrow had outdone himself and the food was exquisite. The occasion was marred, however, by the appearance of Calanthe. He didn’t always bother to turn up at meals, and showed his face only when it suited him. This was rude, but overall for the best, because whenever he did attend his presence was even more offensive than his absences. He was snide to the Kakkahaar, openly sassed Terzian, and even had the nerve to roll his eyes at something Ponclast said. When this happened, Ponclast sent Terzian a quick mind-touch instructing him to get his soume in line, or else he would do it for him. Terzian sent back an apology and a promise to ‘talk to him,’ which hadn’t been remotely what Ponclast had in mind. 

Cobweb, watching this unwelcome interloper progressively ruin his carefully orchestrated formal dinner, grew quietly livid, and eventually, less quietly so. Nohar wanted to linger in the parlor to drink and smoke after the meal was done. 

Ponclast and Terzian ran into each other in the upstairs hallway, each, seemingly, on the way to his own solitary chamber. Ponclast found it interesting that Terzian was sleeping alone, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. Cobweb was cross after tonight’s debacle, and clearly the exquisite Calanthe was even less pliant than ever. Terzian should really just follow Ponclast’s repeated recommendation and take him by force. 

“Lordra,” said Terzian, pressing his fist to his chest in salute. He looked tired, and part of his hair was standing up untidily, as if he’d been running his fingers through it in frustration. 

“Terzian,” Ponclast returned. “Rough day?” 

Terzian grimaced. “I need a break from all these soume types,” he confessed. “Lately it feels like I’m drowning in yaloe around here.” 

Ponclast laughed. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Want to get away for a bit?” His tone was suggestive. 

Terzian nodded vehemently. “Yes, Lordra!”

They didn’t say where they’d go. They didn’t need to. Both knew. They parted in the corridor and went to their chambers, where they spent no more than five minutes each freshening up—a perfectly respectable amount of time for a Varr warrior to preen. They reconvened in the hall, where Ponclast straightened Terzian’s tie and brushed a bit of lint off his jacket. Then they left the house called Forever without another word. 

They were quiet, too, as they saddled their horses in the stables. The silence was pregnant but not awkward, crackling with pleasurable unspoken tension. It reminded Ponclast of the silent assignations between tough human men that he’d read about in books and seen in old movies before the collapse. This wordless communication was characteristic of the ouana spirit. Both he and Terzian were fluent in it. 

They rode into town, relishing the crisp night air on their faces. They smoked as they rode, and passed a flask of sheh between them, tossing and catching it deftly. By the time they reached their destination, Terzian was on his way to being sloshed. Ponclast, who had indulged more sparingly, still felt steady on his feet when he dismounted.

They were outside a musenda. It was a haunt of theirs, whenever Ponclast visited. Terzian was unwilling to be soume for Ponclast within his home or even within Galhea’s city limits, paranoid about preserving his reputation in his little kingdom. It went without saying that it would be a cold day in hell before Ponclast was soume for anyhar, so they were at an impasse. However, they still craved sexual bonding with each other. The musenda was an inelegant solution. They came here for occasional marathons of competitive whore fucking, during which they would admire each other and lock eyes from across the room. 

They tethered their horses and went inside. Somehar must have seen them coming, because the whole brothel was ready for them. All the whores had been lined up in the downstairs lounge, other clients presumably kicked out without ceremony. Ponclast and Terzian paid well enough to compensate for this, but even if they didn’t, they were so feared that the proprietors probably would have done so anyway even if it meant operating at a loss. The whole place was theirs—two handsome foxes in the chicken coop. They had their pick.

Ponclast strode along the line of kanane just as he would along a line of prisoners. All of the merchandise was presented already naked, as he preferred. It simplified inspection. 

“See anything you like, Terzian?” He asked idly. 

Terzian’s eyes were hot with lust, but he knew this game, and loved it. 

“No, Lordra,” he said. “Just a bunch of soume bitches who were probably faggots before.”

Ponclast nodded in agreement. “Soume bitches, like faggots, have their uses,” he commented. 

“True, Lordra.” 

The kanene kept their eyes down. They did not relish these visits, but they were used to them, and also used to pelcia. It was their trade. 

Ponclast paused briefly before a sandy blonde with tanned, golden skin. Shades of Lianvis. There was an undeniable pull there, but he would not indulge his fixation. He grabbed the curly-haired brunette beside him instead. 

“This one,” he said, “will do for a start.”

Terzian was lingering in front of the blonde. Ponclast could tell that he, too, had noticed the resemblance, and was brooding on it. 

“This one’s alright,” he said. “I’ve seen worse.”

Ponclast briefly fantasized about slitting his throat. 

“Your usual room, Lordras?” The proprietor asked deferentially. 

Ponclast nodded to him, and pressed a stack of cash into his hand. “The usual room will be fine,” he said. 

* * *

It was on the fourth day of this that I overheard him laughing with Terzian, looking in my direction with nasty smiles on their faces. I knew he took aruna with Terzian, and had felt his jealousy in the days prior. Now I looked at him, and hated myself even more.

How could he have been jealous over  _ me?  _ He was beautiful. He had no need for the frippery and artifice on which any charm I had relied. He was shining perfection itself, from his immaculately tailored clothes to his perfectly cut golden hair, and I knew he had Ponclast’s favor in all the ways I never could. I would never compare to him and his eyes on me burned like hot coals. I could tell he was laughing at my presumptuousness in thinking I might have a place in any bed he regularly shared.

I fled to my rooms, locking the door behind me. It was all so stupid, and I loathed myself for reacting this way. It was so puerile, so melodramatic. One night of cruelty and four days of inattention shouldn’t have had such an effect on me, but within moments I found myself having thrown a bronze bookend through the vanity mirror in my bedroom and raised a shard to my throat. Catching sight of myself, puffy-eyed from crying, my hair a mess in that piece of broken glass made me pause a moment to revile myself. 

_ What right have you to act so dramatic? You’re a sow, not some romantic heroine. You ought to find a way to die befitting your station, drown yourself in a cesspit, or hang yourself, it might actually improve your face. You don’t have a right to such an artistically arranged death. _

He caught me in that moment of hesitation. He didn’t burst through the door, he didn’t need to. He had the key.

He was on me in a moment, twisting my wrist so I dropped the glass, letting it fall to the floor and shatter into another universe of tiny splinters.

“Good god, Viss,” he said in a tone of utter exasperation, “pull yourself together. Is this all because of the other night?”

I had turned my face away, not wanting to be looked at, but he gripped my jaw, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“Well, Viss?”

“Not just that, but yes, Lordra,” I said, finding myself using the title without thinking and then cringing in shame at my own pathetic servility.

“Is it because I told you you weren’t pretty?” Incredulity on his face. He played it convincingly, acting as if he was shocked at my reaction, but I knew he’d known perfectly well what he was doing.

I nodded helplessly.

“For fuck’s sake. I suppose it’s my fault for underestimating soume fragility.” 

* * *

Ponclast was outwardly calm as ever, but his heart was racing, and adrenaline pulsed through his body. He had picked up on Lianvis’ thought from all the way downstairs. The har had silently cried out for him without meaning to. Ponclast had taken the stairs two at a time in his rush to reach Lianvis, hoping he would not be too late. He hadn’t, as it happened, but it had been awfully close just the same. 

Lianvis’ fingers were cut where he had gripped the glass. Ponclast took his wrist in an iron grip and drew Lianvis’s hand to his lips. Tenderly he kissed the wounds, lapping up the fresh blood.

“Idiot,” he said, letting Lianvis’ hand drop. He took him by the shoulders and steered him in front of the shattered mirror. There was still enough of it left to show a reflection. Lianvis flinched and turned his face from it, eyes tightly shut.

“Look at yourself,” Ponclast ordered. 

Reluctantly, Lianvis obeyed. Ponclast observed him as he examined his reflection, watching the minutiae of his facial expression. He didn’t need to be a psych to read him like a book. Lianvis wasn’t seeing what was there. He saw a phantasm of Ponclast’s invention, an ugly ghost of the other night. 

“I’m a mess,” he muttered.

Ponclast heaved a hefty sigh of exasperation. Clearly he would have to exorcise the aberration he had conjured, the repulsive freak now haunting Lianvis’ mirror. He pulled the har’s snarled hair back from his face, smoothing it away to expose delicate cheekbones and an elegant jawline. “You need cleaning up, true—but look under that. See what you look like? See that face?”

Lianvis was silent, staring at himself without reaction. His expression had gone neutral. He needed to know what he was meant to be seeing. He needed to be told.

Ponclast growled softly under his breath. He found this tiresome. He’d just as soon have left Viss in pieces, but he’d gone too far, breaking him past usefulness. Now the alliance was on shaky ground. The other Kakkahaar had begun to look at Ponclast with a new wariness and distaste, sensing that he was to blame for their leader’s state of mind. It had not been politic of him to push Viss so hard. Frankly, it was embarrassing to have miscalculated so badly. Like a heedless child, he’d broken his toy. Now it was time to be an adult, and clean up his mess. 

At least, he reflected, he could put Lianvis back together in any shape he chose. 

“Stupid cunt.” He said it with an approximation of affection, letting a hint of warmth creep into his voice. “You’re beautiful. A Wraeththu legend. You know that.”

Viss’s voice was very small. “But do  _ you _ think me beautiful, Lordra?” 

Ponclast scoffed. He put his arms around Viss from behind, pulling him back against his body to let him feel his erection. “I’m the archon of Varr. I don’t settle for less than the best.” 

He held his eyes in the mirror. They looked beautiful together—Ponclast taller and impeccable as ever in his gleaming black leathers, Lianvis fragile and disheveled in his flimsy, sweat-dampened bathrobe. A wicked knight and his captive damsel in distress. 

Lianvis nodded, staring at them. “Yes, Lordra,” he said softly, finally seeing the picture.

“Good.” Ponclast gripped his shoulders and steered him to the chair before his vanity. “Let’s get you presentable. Tonight is a party, and I require you to be there, looking radiant.” 

He picked up Lianvis’s brush and set to work on his tangles with brisk, brutal efficiency, caring not at all how much it hurt. 

* * *

He melted me. This felt like tenderness, although if any other har had treated me so, I would have burnt them to ash or turned them to a pillar of salt where they stood, like Lot’s unfortunate wife… but from  _ him,  _ from him it was honey sweetness, and it broke the spell. I’d been seeing ghosts in the mirror, my hume self, a beautiful boy who couldn’t smile because his mangled teeth betrayed just how poor his family was, myself during althaia, rotting, dying, and then something like a corpse, perhaps the corpse of the har he’d symbolically murdered so many times during our nights of violent passion.

Now though, seeing us together, I could see what he did, and that too was a new image of myself. A vampire and his trembling victim, a rescued Ophelia in the brooding hero's arms. I was beautiful, but I think I saw for the first time then, truly how he did see me. I had been playing the part as far as it went, to an extent, but I had not seen myself as so… fragile. My self image had still been fundamentally masculine in a way, a rockstar’s swaggering bisexual seductiveness and a dark magician’s magical prowess. When I stood next to him though, he looked like either my protector or tormentor. I wondered if it had all been calculated to back me into this corner, force me to see what he did.  _ Soume har, soft, dependant, delicate.  _ Even as I wondered, I felt myself bending to his will. His hard ‘lim pressing against me through leather made me grind my hips back against his, an instinctive gesture, eagerly provocative.

He required my presence at a party. He cared about how I looked for said party. What did it say about the way his presence affected me that that felt like such a triumph?

Even as I reveled inwardly, I had to bite my lip from yelping when he insisted on brushing out my hair for me. Strangely for all his roughness with the process, it was clear he knew precisely what he was doing. He knew how to start at the ends and work upwards so as not to cause breakage. It hurt but he made quick work of it. I almost wondered where he’d picked up the skill, before remembering that he was Jarad. I thought then of Jarad before the attack, the onyx waterfall down his graceful back, shimmering in the club lights as we danced.

“Thank you, Lordra,” I said bowing my head, as he set the brush down. He gathered it into a tail and let its silken length run idly through his hand. “I hadn’t brushed it since Ilasi came to try to cheer me up with mediocre aruna.”

He didn’t even stop playing with my hair as he heard it, but I felt something, some subtle energetic shift in the room as I said it. I brushed it off as imaginary. Jealousy was for hara in love. 

He dropped my hair. “Get yourself cleaned up and fix your face,” he said, waving me off before realizing the danger. I was barefoot and there was glass on the floor. He sighed in irritation.

“You really have managed to get yourself into  _ quite  _ a situation, Viss, even if you hadn’t done it. What would you have done if I hadn’t come? Yowled until someone came to fetch your slippers?”

He didn’t give me the chance to respond, stripping me of my robe and throwing me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing at all. I probably could have pulled the same stunt with him had I been so inclined and had he been less likely to be inclined towards roasting me over an open flame had I been so inclined. The obvious answer to his question was that I had intended to be dead, insofar as I had intended anything at that point.

He deposited me in the bath without ceremony.

“Lordra,” I called out over the running water, “...may I come to you tonight?”

He turned, seeming to consider.

“Do you intend to become hysterical again?”

“No, Lordra, I apologize for my outburst when we were last together,” I said, the response came automatically. Where did he pull this obsequiousness from in me?

“Then you may.”

He watched, impassive with arms folded as I bathed.

“Is this really necessary-- Lordra?” 

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I’m convinced you’re not going to do anything stupid,” he said. “Besides, I think you like being watched.”

“Oh, why is that, Lordra?”

“Soume hara are made to be looked at. They live for it,” he said. “I actually wasn’t sure you were as soume as you looked until today, but now there’s no question.”

I cocked my head to the side as I soaped my legs.

“Why, Lordra?”

“Because only a har whose greatest ambition is life is to be a fuck toy would try to off himself over what I said.”

* * *

  
Ponclast watched Lianvis flush prettily at his words. His head bowed and his eyelids lowered, so that golden lashes cuddled his cheeks. It was a classically feminine reaction, and it proved Ponclast’s point nicely. 

“I don’t know what a soume har is supposed to be,” Lianvis muttered resentfully, though he continued to blush. “That’s just something that you Varrs made up. Other tribes don’t  _ have _ soume hara, you know.”

Ponclast pulled out a cigarette, and struck a match off the silver button on his sleeve. “There you’re wrong,” he said. He took a drag, and exhaled slowly, letting the smoke trickle out seductively between his lips before he spoke again. “What other tribes lack is ouana hara.”

Lianvis scoffed. “That’s absurd,” he said. “Non-Varrs are perfectly capable of being ouana.”

Ponclast shook his head. “No,” he countered, “They’re just capable of getting their ‘lims hard. There’s more to being ouana than that.”

“Like what?” Lianvis cried in exasperation. “Short hair?”

Ponclast raised his eyebrows and leaned against the doorframe. He knew exactly how he looked, and just what he embodied. “C’mon, Viss. You’re perfectly aware of the difference. Unless you’re telling me you get that wet and needy for every har?”

Lianvis spluttered indignantly. Ponclast didn’t wait for him to get out his retort. He wasn’t interested.

“Stop embarrassing yourself. Just admit that nohar else has ever made you feel this way.”

Lianvis sighed, and sullenly washed his face. “You do seem to bring out the soume in me,” he conceded, after a moment. 

“Naturally,” said Ponclast. “It responds to the presence of genuine masculinity.”

* * *

I didn’t for that matter get that wet and needy for everyhar, but it had nothing to do with masculinity. Jarad had made me feel both more soume and more ouana than I’d ever felt for anyhar else, and with Ponclast the only option was being soume. The argument was pointless, as I couldn’t point out that if it was allowed out he’d get my ‘lim harder than any other har too without a risk of doing serious harm to diplomatic relations. Then again, he’d probably point out how soume it was to consider whether one was allowed to have one’s lim out… and so on and so on, I argued back in my head, but with his eyes on me like that, with him leaning against the doorframe in that elegantly threatening way I felt myself slipping into the mold he seemed so determined for me to fit into. I wondered if this was truly a change or if in reality he was right, and it had always been a perfect fit.

Had I always been like this? 

“When you have them in hand,” he said, stretching languidly and sauntering over to the tub, “a good soume is softer and sweeter than any hume woman was for her man. They had that whole unfortunate division of sexual organs, whereas with us, it’s strictly a har’s nature. I mean, what did you see when you looked at us in the mirror together? Do you think that’s all just costuming?”

“No, but it has to do with the way you  _ are  _ with me,” I replied, and he laughed.

“That’s exactly it, Viss, the way  _ I am _ with you. I’ll admit, you’re not some shrinking violet, but that just proves my point. A soume har like you needs  _ real _ ouana to realize what he is. That’s why among your troupe of soume hara, you’ve convinced yourself you can do it all, be ouana and soume at once. Put you here though…” he almost purred, before reaching down with sudden violence and shoving leather gloved fingers inside me under the water, “and look what happens. Your body figures out fast enough what it’s supposed to be.”

I gasped at the unexpected intrusion, clutching at the edge of the tub to keep myself from sliding at the force, and with just as little warning his hand was gone, and he was tossing away the ruined glove as if nothing of importance had happened.

“Yes, Lordra,” I finally agreed, because at that moment what else could I say to him.

“That’s what I wanted to hear. Now, do something about the hair between your legs, and under your arms.”

I nodded, and considered the problem. I didn’t keep a razor around as the two aforementioned areas are the only areas below the neck that grow anything beyond peach fuzz on hara (not to mention our lack of beards), and like most hara, I had left the hair as it was. I’d been male once, and body hair had been seen as, well, normal. I don’t know why I didn’t argue. Something about the order, one that affected my appearance in a way that would last beyond changing my clothes or removing my makeup felt degrading, but of course, there were the cuts on my back. It was a threshold already well crossed.

“Is there a… razor?” I asked, wondering if one was provided for visiting soume hara, so that they might better conform to Varrish grooming customs (if indeed this was a custom and not simply a personal preference of the archon).

“As a matter of fact there is,” he replied, “though I think I’d better be the one to use it.”

* * *

Ponclast extracted a solemn vow from Lianvis not to do anything stupid before he went to fetch the required items from his own chambers. It made him jumpy, leaving Viss alone, even though he was fairly certain that the suicidal urge had passed. He was just down the hall anyway. He couldn’t bleed out before Ponclast got back.

From his bathroom, he retrieved his fetishistic holy grail: the straight razor. Though he had no beard to maintain, and did not remove what body hair he retained, he had actually used it to shave, not just to slash. It had been applied to Terzian’s scalp on occasion, and also to his pubic hair. Various other victims had also been used for practice. 

He did a quick mental check-in on Lianvis, who appeared to be none the worse for wear, before gathering up the rest of the shaving kit. To Ponclast, every item in it was an erotic talisman of staggering power, from the little round puck of soap and the shave mug it nestled into, to the badger hair brush, to the leather strop. This last was second only to the razor itself in erotic charge, and could be used to administer one hell of a beating. 

He carried the ritual items back to Lianvis’ room. The har was where he had left him, still soaking in the bath. Without comment, Ponclast began to strop the razor. The sound it made sent tingles down his spine. Glancing at Lianvis with a sideways smirk, he saw that the other har’s eyes were wide with trepidation. 

“I see you’ve recovered your will to live,” he drily remarked. 

* * *

While he was gone I was anxious, almost afraid to move for fear of… what? I don’t even know. And then he was back, with a set of equipment I’d mostly seen in old movies. There had been a few hara who’d used cut-throat razors as weapons in those early days, when they could find them, but the whole set of equipment… that was something else. 

I shuddered involuntarily at the sight of him. This was no dainty little plastic handled thing, not the style of razor I’d used when I’d been a hume. This was deadly, luxurious with a mother of pearl handle, and he was going to use it  _ there _ of all places, that most sensitive and delicate region of my anatomy. It aroused me, the very thought of it. I could only imagine the sensation as he stropped that beautiful deadly thing.

* * *

The blade was sharp, lethally gleaming. Ponclast tested it lightly on his fingernail, and smiled at how smoothly it carved the shallow groove. He lathered the brush on the shave soap, then turned to Lianvis. 

“Lift your arm,” he ordered.

Lianvis obeyed. Ponclast knelt beside the tub and smeared the lather liberally onto his armpit. With splayed fingers, he carefully stretched the skin, then lifted the shining razor. He deftly smoothed away the hair with featherlight strokes, first with the grain, and then a second pass against it. When he was done, the skin was so smooth that it was as if hair had never grown there. Ponclast almost wanted to lick it. He’d never really contemplated the sensuousness of the subtle curves and valleys of that region. Lianvis was very clean at present, and even sweaty, his body odor was so sweet and seductive as to be worth a taste… 

_ Later,  _ he promised himself. At the moment, it just felt too sleazy, too dirty and profane. He’d do it tonight, in the heat of passion, when Lianvis’ natural musk had recovered from the bath, after he had perspired from an evening of dancing. It would probably embarrass  _ him _ thoroughly then. Doing such a thing now would only embarrass Ponclast. 

“Now the other side,” he said, and Viss obligingly turned and lifted his other arm, putting his hand behind his head and gripping his long hair to keep it out of the way. Ponclast admired the graceful line of his arched body. He appeared relaxed. So far his experience of the straight razor had been less nerve-wracking than anticipated. Ponclast smiled to himself. This was the easy part. 

He dealt with the other pit just as thoroughly and efficiently as the first. “Feel that,” he told Viss as he finished.

Lianvis stuck his fingers under his arms, and his eyes widened.

“Like velvet,” said Ponclast, “aren’t you?”

Wordlessly, Lianvis nodded. He had tensed up. Next, he knew, came the part that he dreaded.

Ponclast folded a towel and placed it on the closed lid of the toilet. “Sit there,” he commanded, “and spread your legs.”

Viss complied, blushing prettily again. He looked almost like a centerfold from an old porno-mag.  _ One from the seventies,  _ Ponclast thought humorously,  _ with that bush.  _

Ponclast knelt between his legs, and once more lathered the brush. He stroked the shave soap gently onto Lianvis’ pubic mound, going carefully around the bud of his retracted ouana-lim. There were more fine, golden hairs on some of the lower regions, between the folds of Viss’ soume-lam. Ponclast planned to deal with them, but was disinclined to use the soap there. Lianvis’ natural lubrication would be enough. 

“Please be careful, Lordra,” Lianvis pleaded. Ponclast glanced up to see him looking down, nervously biting his lip.

“Hold still and you’ll be fine,” Ponclast returned. “I’ve done this to plenty of hara.”

* * *

  
I felt where he told me. I _was_ like velvet. Somehow this felt more emasculating than anything before, being subjected to this ritual depilation. Pre-collapse, these were areas most women had shaved and most men had not. My body was being brought into line with…  _ appropriate femininity _ in a way all the makeup and perfume and silk in the world could not have done and he wasn’t even letting me do it myself (not that I knew how to use that vicious blade well enough to manage). 

When he knelt between my legs, I had to control myself to keep from shuddering. He made that seemingly submissive position one of absolute authority. The thickly lathered brush caressing that sensitive skin, tugging gently at the hair as it saturated it with foam. When that was done there his fingers were, pulling the skin taut, probing to make sure he had just the right angle, and the delicate scrape of the razor and the sensation of tender skin newly exposed to the cool air made my ‘lam drip as he worked. Soft foam over silken curls, the bright steel of the razor and then again that sensation of… bareness.

I was perfectly still, but every stroke of the razor sent a fresh wave of desire searing through me.

“Lordra,” I found myself gasping, fingers curling around the nearby towel rack just for something to hold on to. He said he’d practiced on plenty of hara, and I couldn’t help wondering if the sensation had this effect on every har he did it to, or if my reaction was unique.

* * *

Ponclast relished the visual of cold, hard steel against warm, soft flesh. The process was precise, fastidious, and yet at the same time, something about sticking a blade right up in somehar’s business like this appealed to the Uigenna delinquent in him. Lianvis was utterly at his mercy now, and he knew it. He was lucky that the only thing Ponclast chose to remove was hair. 

He daydreamed, briefly, about what it would be like to trim the fleshy petals of the soume-lam, which allowed the organ to close up when not in use. The orifice would be completely exposed and defenseless, then, surrounded not by delicate folds but only taut, red scar tissue. He regretted that he did not possess the surgical skill for such a procedure. 

Of course, the ouana-lim could also be completely removed. But Ponclast wasn’t too concerned about that. Lianvis’s had been well-behaved so far. It had not even made an appearance. So long as this persisted, Ponclast was content to keep pretending that it didn’t exist. 

He thought about  _ girls _ . Unlike many hara, he’d actually liked them. He’d been with a couple, even gone steady with one, before he’d been incepted. Sure, he’d thought about guys, too, but that had been a silent desire, muted, almost hidden even from itself. The feelings girls had produced in his teenage body had not been quiet at all. When his female classmates had brushed past him in the school hallway, with a breeze of short skirts and an aura of scented shampoo that lingered in the air, he’d had to turn, beet-red, towards his locker and pretend to be hunting for something until the tent in his pants went down. Did they really have no idea of the torture they inflicted with their long legs and swishing hips, their tits that bounced inside tight tops that slid down their shoulders to let bra straps peek out? It pissed him off. 

He’d had his revenge on women, since. Hara can’t take aruna with humes without killing them. Aren acts like acid on their flesh. Ponclast hadn’t let that stop him. 

He was done with the hair on the pubic mound. He washed off the blade, then moved his attention downwards. This was the really delicate part, the part that would take the most skill, and also the part he had most looked forward to. He pried apart the soft folds of skin, which stuck to each other with the slippery, damning evidence of Viss’s arousal.

“I see you’ve been enjoying this,” he remarked blandly. 

* * *

I was throbbing by the time he was through with the outer portion of my lam. The precision and care of his fingers leaving me soaking and on fire with need.

When he commented on the fact I felt my still bare face heat with shame.

“Yes, Lordra,” I admitted. The heady mixture of lust and humiliation coursing through me made the sikras within me throb, desperate to be touched. I wanted him to take forever, and I wanted him to be done immediately so he could throw me down on the bed and ravage my soft denuded ‘lam until I was a shuddering wreck unable to speak.

And when those careful fingers parted my inner petals to remove the traces of hair that lingered there… that sensation alone was very close to sending me over the edge. The tension, and teasing viciously light pressure of the blade left me gasping as he carefully sliced away the last few curls around my entrance.

He let out a low chuckle as he watched me try not to writhe under his ministrations.

“Feels good to you, does it, soume cunt?”

I couldn’t find words, I could only whimper and nod. He laughed again as he finished, splashing cold water over my skin to remove any trace of soap.

The shock of the cold drew more needy noises from me and he rolled his eyes.

“Fix your face,” he ordered, standing up. “And hurry it up. This party tonight is important. If the alliance falls apart, the Gelaming will have us all for hostlings.”

I was unsure of my balance as I stood.

“Somehar should have been in to deal with the glass by now,” he said, as if I’d remembered that little detail in the state I was in.

“Yes, Lordra,” I managed, though my tongue felt clumsy as I spoke. I found myself struggling to put my robe back on, only realizing what a tangle I’d made of it when he came to sort it out with an exasperated sigh.

“Pull yourself together, Viss,” he snapped with obvious impatience. 

I did try. I took a deep breath and remembered meditations in the most inhospitable of conditions, magical workings done in the heat of battle, Grissecon in the fury of a sandstorm, and cursed myself for thinking of the last one. Still, surely if I could manage to retain my focus under such circumstances, getting prepared for and going to a  _ party  _ should have been no trouble at all, but he’d done things to me, rattled me like nothing ever had. 

Nevertheless, I followed orders, obediently sitting down at my vanity, on which somehar had thoughtfully propped an unbroken mirror to replace the shattered one. I felt his gaze more intensely than ever as I painted, and powdered. I was aware of the way his observation changed my routine. I was precise, intent, every brush stroke perfectly planned, no improvisation. I wanted my meticulousness to match his, and the result too, was quite different from what I typically did. I was always seductive but that seductiveness was paired with a certain severity, a certain disdain, something suggesting authority and even cruelty. This was pure invitation, smoky eyes with gilded lids and lips slick and sweet with wine red gloss, gold on my cheekbones, my lashes darkened to emphasize the green gold of my eyes, hypnotic and yet utterly vulnerable, utterly pliant. A vamp to be ravished, not to be ravished by.

* * *

Hairless below the neck, made up and nearly naked, Lianvis looked even more like a harrish version of a pre-collapse porn star. He’d make any har with an ounce of ouana in him hard. That was what Ponclast wanted. 

“Stand up,” he commanded. “Turn around.”

Lianvis stood, and slowly rotated. Ponclast inspected him thoroughly, taking the painted face between his hand to turn it from side to side, running his fingers through the long hair to ensure its silkiness, and finally groping between Viss’ legs, double-checking that everything was smooth. He was perfection, his skin as soft, creamy and sweet-smelling as magnolia petals. Ponclast’s head swam with lust. 

“Hm,” he said noncommittally, as if unsure whether he was pleased. He strolled over to the wardrobe, and rifled through it. A flash of red caught his eye. He pulled out a robe that flowed cool and fluid over his hands. The material was semi-translucent.  _ Blood in the water. _

“This’ll do,” he said curtly, tossing the garment at Lianvis. “Get this on. I’ll be right back.” 

He headed off to his room to retrieve a couple of items he wanted, to spray on a little cologne, and get a fresh set of gloves. A glance at the mirror assured him that was all he needed to be ready. He already looked impeccable. The Varr uniform transitions effortlessly from day to evening, from war-room to battlefield. 

He returned to Lianvis to find him preening before the mirror. The scarlet robe looked even better on him than Ponclast had anticipated. It plunged low in the neck, showing off most of Viss’ chest, managing somehow to suggest cleavage. Lianvis was fiddling with his hair, pinning roses and rubies into it. He turned when he heard Ponclast come in. 

“Do I look alright, Lordra?” He asked uncertainly. He seemed as vulnerable as the teenager Ponclast remembered—no, far more so. Young Lianvis had played at being cocksure.

“You’ll do,” said Ponclast, allowing himself a smile. 

Lianvis glowed at this, as if it were the highest compliment, a whole iambic sonnet on his beauty. 

“You aren’t quite ready, however,” Ponclast said. “Bend over and flip up your robe.”

Lianvis made a startled little noise of consternation in the back of his throat, but did as he was told. Ponclast walked up behind him, finally bringing out the hand that he had hidden behind his back. In it were a pair of small, stainless steel orbs, about the size of ping-pong balls, and a matching anal plug. He deftly inserted the Ben Wa balls in Lianvis’ ‘lam. Before the gasp of surprise had fully escaped the other har’s throat, he had the plug in him, too.

“There,” said Ponclast, stepping back and allowing the robe to fall back down. “Now we can go downstairs. Try not to lose those,” he added, as an afterthought. “That would be quite embarrassing… for you.”

* * *

I was standing perfumed and perfect in front of the mirror wearing that sleeveless next to nothing of a “robe” when he returned. It clung seductively to my torso and had a slit in the skirts up almost to the hip which allowed for teasing glimpses of long smooth shapely leg, jingling anklets and feet in jeweled sandals, and it felt almost more indecent to have him see me wearing it than it had having him see me at my most naked and raw. I already felt like an object, the jewelry I used to wear as a symbol of my wealth and power now felt somehow as if it had instead become symbolic of  _ his _ wealth and power and of  _ my _ position as something to be looked  _ at,  _ and not an observer in my own right. But then he told me to bend over, and shoved a pair of metal orbs inside me. I was familiar with the toy, an old invention, but these were of a particularly humiliating variety, one could just hear a subtle chiming as I moved and they moved within me. It wouldn’t be audible to others over the noise of a party, but the simple awareness that they  _ could _ theoretically be heard was enough to bring a hot blush to my cheeks. After that the intrusion of the plug just added to my sense of unguarded availability. I was open, ready, waiting to be had at any moment. My robe only just covered the words still visibly carved into my lower back, and if it and my hair should shift at the wrong moment. I shivered to think of any other ouana Varr seeing what he’d done to me.

“Thank you, Lordra,” I said, and he took me by the arm, guiding me to the door. It felt surreal, dream like. With every step the balls within me chimed their soft silvery chime as the weights inside them shifted making them quiver inside me, and I was achingly aware of the plug as well, the pleasure of it nestled in me. It was almost as if I floated rather than walked, but for the jolt of the balls.

He escorted me as if we were chesna, putting my arm through his as he helped me down the stairs so as to be sure I wouldn’t trip over my trailing robes. He treated me with all the chivalrous care of a fantasy of ideal Victorian manhood, as I worried my yaloe would drip down my thighs. I only had eyes for him, the evening’s political importance be damned. Of course, looking back, he was probably trying to show me that I didn’t have a head for politics, or perhaps it wasn’t so calculated and he just wanted to humiliate me. Mostly I remember the feeling of being in his arms on the dance floor, or on his arm during conversations with the other hara of my delegation who looked at me with surprised pleasure at first and then with puzzlement and concern as they seemed to fully take in the state I was in, and the way I looked up at him as if searching for guidance before answering questions.

* * *

The party was in full swing by the time they made it downstairs. Ponclast felt he finally understood why they called it being “fashionably late”—Viss had taken forever to get ready. He did look, smell, and feel wonderful, however, so Ponclast supposed it was worth it. 

All eyes turned to them as they entered. The reaction was immediate. The Varr officers saluted enthusiastically, their eyes alight with ecstatic triumph. Seeing their archon walk in with the leader of Kakkahaar draped over his arm like a captive concubine felt like a coup, almost as if the war was already won. 

The mood became celebratory. The live band, quick on the uptake, played a fanfare and a brief military march to announce them as the crowd parted to let them pass. High-ranking Varrs approached to offer toasts to Ponclast and his “charming companion.” Ponclast knocked back the offered drinks and returned pleasantries with a wolffish smile, while Lianvis, cleared overwhelmed, murmured platitudes and clung to his arm. 

Only Terzian hung back, his eyes afire with jealousy and hurt. Ponclast noted his anguish just long enough to briefly savor it, then returned his attention to more important matters.

The great hall of Forever was lit with candles and draped with banners bearing the Varr insignia. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres were supplied on silver platters by serving hara. Cigar and cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air. The Varrish band played in a strange style that sometimes sounded as if it belonged to the nineteenth century, sometimes the early twentieth. It was over-civilized music for formal, partnered dancing. Once, long ago, many of these Varrs had been Uigenna, twisting and gyrating under club lights to pounding industrial rhythms. Back then, they would’ve scorned this party as boring. Now, it was impossible to imagine them dancing any other way. 

“Will you do me the honor?” Ponclast murmured in Lianvis’ ear, inhaling the perfume of his hair. 

Lianvis blinked as if he didn’t understand. The words belonged in a film or a novel, not in their lives. “Oh,” he said at length, “I’m afraid I don’t know how to dance this way.”

Terzian, overhearing, laughed derisively. Ponclast’s back stiffened— he had not noticed him near. 

“I’m sure we’d all love to see how the Kakkahaar dance, Tiahaar,” he drawled. His eyes raked over Lianvis’ body, undressing him with a glance. His tone insinuated that he expected to see something lewd and serpentine, between a belly-dance and a strip-tease. 

“Ignore him,” Ponclast commanded, low in Lianvis’ ear. He raised his voice, and his chin, speaking loud enough for Terzian to hear. “It’s perfectly simple, Viss,” he said. “I lead, you follow.”

Without giving his companion the chance to respond, he took Lianvis’ right hand in his, and pressed his left hand to his waist. Lianvis’ left hand drifted automatically to his epauletted shoulder. 

“See?” Said Ponclast. “You already know how.”

He steered him effortlessly onto the floor and into the dance. It was a waltz—thankfully, a slow one. Ponclast led forcefully, and Lianvis caught on quickly enough, even managing to look graceful. As they whirled, Ponclast noticed out of the corner of his eye that many of the Varrs, following his example, approached the Kakkahaar for dancing partners. Most demurred, but a few accepted. It was enough, and more than enough. All the pretty soume things were falling neatly into his trap. 

* * *

The party was absurd, it seemed to have been lifted out of an old movie. The entire perfectly choreographed scene with all these hara, ouana in leather with close cropped hair, smoking cigars and swirling sheh in crystal glasses, and soume all flowing garments and painted faces fluttering about seemed like something that belonged to a time when humanity was still at the height of its power, but I found myself falling into the role. It felt so natural to cling close to him, and when he asked me to dance I felt the strangest desire to say yes, despite my having only the vaguest idea of how to waltz. 

Terzian’s comment made me tense. He was jealous and I was sane enough to know it now. He’d been anxious about Ponclast’s interest in me since the day I’d arrived and possibly before and now he wanted to get an insult in. I was prepared to strike back myself, despite my state, but Ponclast was there before I could get a word out, telling me to ignore him. I did, feeling absurdly grateful for his intervention even as he swept me out onto the floor and sent the balls inside me into a frenzied clamour of chiming and vibration with the constant movement. It was easy to slip into the rhythm with him guiding me as he did with his leather gloved hand on my naked back.

He whirled me round to the music, sending the skirts of my robe flaring out high enough to elicit whistles and cheers from some of the Varr officers. Had he won? Had I handed my tribe over to him by handing myself over with such abandon? I couldn’t think of such questions then, not as I looked up at him in aching desire. How long would we have to spend on political niceties? This couldn’t really be helping inter-tribal relations… could it? I noticed more than a few of my own hara now in the arms of Varrish officers, seemingly most amused by these odd foreign customs. Were they feeling what I felt? Were they falling the same way I had? Would it be so bad if they did? 

My world was mostly though for a time a whirl of colors and harrish voices laughing and joking and the music of the band playing all the while as we danced and mingled. I hated myself for my elation. This didn’t mean anything really. It was symbolic, a gesture to improve the relations between our tribes intermingled with our sexual chemistry, nothing more than that. Even so the heat between us was undeniable, and he seemed to be in a celebratory mood, knocking back sheh with a good humoured ease that seemed almost unlike him.

“I think your Terzian doesn’t much like me,” I commented, flicking my eyes in his direction without moving my head.

“No, he doesn’t,” he agreed, sipping a whisky he’d just been brought by somehar and smirking as his eyes wandered again over the contours of my barely clothed body, “does it bother you?”

I pursed my lips, thinking it over.

“I suppose it makes me curious more than anything.”

* * *

Ponclasts’s eyes narrowed. Lianvis’s interest in his affairs was impertinent, if understandable. In private, he might be willing to answer more honestly, but he could think of no reply that he felt comfortable giving in this room. 

He was saved from his quandary by the appearance of the har himself. Terzian had elbowed his way through the crowd to them, and grabbed for Ponclast’s shoulder. His breath reeked of sheh. 

“Lordra,” he slurred, “I must speak with you.”

Ponclast shook him off. “You  _ dare _ lay hands on me?” His voice was like a slap. 

Terzian backed off slightly. His eyes were bright with pain. “Please, Lordra,” he husked.

Ponclast sighed, and relinquished his hold on Lianvis. This would clearly have to be dealt with. If he did not grant Terzian a private audience, he sensed the har would cause a tiresome scene right here.

“Excuse us for a moment,” he said to Viss.

He grabbed Terzian by the arm and marched him out into the hall.

“At last you have me all to yourself,” he said. “Speak up.”

Terzian looked as if he didn’t know whether to punch him or break down crying. “Lordra, you must stop this,” he begged. 

Ponclast’s nostrils flared with irritation. “Stop what?” he demanded.

Terzian spluttered, gesturing expansively as if to take in everything that Ponclast was doing. “Carrying on with that Kakkahaar witch!”

“Jealousy bores me,” said Ponclast.

“It’s more than jealousy,” Terzian insisted, in a voice that shook. “It kills me to see you demeaning yourself with…  _ that!” _

“With whom am I meant to demean myself then, Terzian?” Ponclast asked, finally losing his temper. 

Terzian, trembling, stepped towards him with open arms. “Take me instead, Lordra,” he pleaded. “I’ll let you do it, even here in Forever. Right here in this hall, if it pleases you. Anything to get you away from that har.”

Ponclast placed a hand on Terzian’s chest and shoved, sending him stumbling back. “Down,” he ordered, in a low, deadly voice.

Terzian dropped automatically to his knees, just as he had done in the bedroom so many times, but never here in this house where he was master. “Lordra,” he choked incoherently, his eyes swimming with tears. 

“Know your place.” Ponclast’s voice was just as soft, just as merciless, as before. “I’ll do exactly as I see fit, and when I’ve had my fill, perhaps I’ll throw you a scrap, dog.”

He turned on his heel and strode back towards the ballroom, leaving Terzian where he knelt. The whole exchange had left him strangely shaken. It had been utterly distasteful. Something about Terzian’s drunken outburst, though, intrigued him. It had been an eruption of savage emotions amid the refined proceedings, like a grenade lobbed into the midst of the elegant party. It gave him inspiration.

He snapped his fingers at a soume-har bearing a tray of drinks. The servant approached defferentially. Ponclast picked up three shot glasses in a row and downed each in turn, setting his empties back on the tray.

“To your health, Lordra,” the servant murmured, with a hint of daring flirtation.

Ponclast drew closer to him. “I’m looking for something a bit stronger,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone. “Do you happen to know if there’s any har here who can arrange that?” To make his meaning clear he gently tapped the side of his nose.

The servant’s eyes widened, and then he smiled shyly.

“As it happens, Lordra,” he said, “I believe I can.”


	4. The Third Night, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content note: DRUGS.

He hadn’t been gone all that long when I decided I ought to go look for him. Some of my hara had surrounded me the instant he left, asking about how I was and exclaiming brightly about how much better I looked. I said I’d finally managed to get used to the weather and had a decent roon, and waved them off. 

He’d gone off with Terzian. Should I be jealous? Did I have any right? I couldn’t imagine how I’d react if I found them together. Ultimately it didn’t matter though.

I found him alone in a little parlour across the hall snorting a line of iridescent powder off a mirror with a thousand spinner note. I knew what it was, Silver Ice, a newer concoction. Uigenna in origin, though a lot of tribes made it now. It was the kind of upper that made you feel like your spine was electric and caused joyous little neural fireworks to go off in your brain.

“Lordra,” I purred, slinking over. The balls inside me vibrated with every step. I was hoping he’d share. Normally, I partook in such things as part of ritual. But who was to say this wasn’t? Everything we did together was grissecon, an invocation of some great dark spirit that lived within us both. Calling it down to earth. It was quiet in there, you could hear the silvery chime ever so softly as I moved. He looked up and gave me that wolfish grin.

“Viss,” he practically purred, pupils blown and sheh on his breath. He looked dangerous and beautiful and like everything I wanted. “Come here.”

I came there and he offered me a bump off the tip of his finger, like he was giving me a taste of whipped cream. I inhaled it and then lapped any residue off with the tip of my tongue. He watched with distant appreciation, and then suddenly he had me by the hair and practically thrown over the little settee nearby. He was efficient in yanking up my skirts and ordering me to stay perfectly still. I felt the icy burn of the powder on my skin as he ever-so-carefully poured it out and arranged it with some kind of card. I knew precisely what the pattern was this time. It sent electric fizzes through the barely scabbed cuts on my back.

 _Soume cunt._ He was going to snort that off my back, take the words in like they were my essence.   
  
“Stay,” came the frigid order. I stayed as he roughly yanked the balls out of my bare vulnerable ‘lam before replacing them with his leather gloved fingers, using his other hand to hold the bill through which all that pretty sparkling powder went right up his nose. 

As soon as he was done the fingers slid from me, and I heard buckles being undone and zips being unzipped, and I died a little inside thinking about how bad I wanted it. Bad. Not badly. Not desperately. No, I wanted it _bad_ , _bad_ with none of the dignity the adverb form might lend it, _bad_ because I wanted it to be bad, wanted him to be bad to me.

I made undignified little noises of longing. I wondered how many hume girls had been done in this room in situations not really dissimilar from this one in the house’s past. The belt came down across my ass and I yelped and arched into it, masochism aided by silver ice’s cold fire in my lungs. He had one hand on my hips as he shoved his ‘lim into my dripping cunt. With him, it was a cunt. With him _I_ was a cunt. He offered me two fingers coated in the bitter powder and I sucked them clean with relish.

* * *

It was rare for Ponclast to indulge so heavily in intoxicants, at least of a chemical kind. Harrish tolerance is quite high, and Ponclast was no stripling. He could put a lot away without feeling much; and as feeling something seemed to him to be rather the point, he often grew bored before managing to sufficiently poison his body. Besides, he was much too fond of control to make a habit of recreational brain damage. Oh yes, he always had a drink near to hand, but to him that was something between a beverage and a prop, not a drug. Nicotine was the only substance he really depended on. 

Tonight was special. Tonight he felt a longing to break free of at least some of his self-imposed constraints. _Bache bene venies._

This was dirty. It reminded him of their Uigenna days, late nights at that burnt-out warehouse they had called a club, when Viss had fed him pills that made him see colorful auras around all the dancing hara. Only now, he was the one with the stash. There was power in that. The way Lianvis’ eyes had lit at the sight of the pretty powder told him everything he needed to know about how _that_ har’s current relationship to substances. 

He grabbed Viss by the hips and fucked him inartistically. He wasn’t really feeling the drug yet, or the drink much, for that matter. He didn’t really care. It was all just an excuse. In the worst case scenario, if he felt nothing, he could simply pretend to be a bit more impaired than he was. That alone would give him the chance to let go. He _was_ irritated, however, at the thought that the serving har might’ve given him weak shit…

Mid-thrust, the chemicals finally hit his brain. The feeling was hard to describe—a kind of exultant rage, mixed with a thrilling sense of godlike power. Also, his ouana-lim was suddenly about a thousand times more sensitive. He gasped, sucking in oxygen through clenched teeth. The very air seemed to have a sharp flavor. The world had taken on brighter, clearer, harder edges. Adrenalized aggression pulsed through his body, and he had a sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to smash Viss’s head right through the glass coffee table. 

“Yes,” he hissed. 

He wrapped his belt around Viss’ neck and started to pound him at triple speed, marveling at the wild energy surging through him. He was reminded of a scene in his favorite old film, wherein little Alex gives a couple of young devotchkas the old in-out, in-out in fast-forward motion, all to the strains of the William Tell Overture. Lianvis howled in pain or ecstasy, and Ponclast drove his fist into his side to shut him up. He wasn’t going to last long, not this time, that much was obvious. For once he didn’t care. The drug had him utterly convinced of his sexual prowess, as well as his superiority in all other matters. 

He came hard, biting down on Lianvis’ shoulder like a puppy with a rug, growling all the while. The orgasm left him light-headed and trembling. He pulled out, noticing detachedly that blood was welling up from the tooth marks on Viss’s skin. With shaky hands, he pushed the softly chiming balls back into Lianvis’ dripping ‘lam. It pleased him to think about Viss stumbling back onto the dance floor with Ponclast’s aren running down his leg beneath his robe. 

“Let’s get back to the party,” he said. His voice was icy, and betrayed an anger he hadn’t known he felt. What was the cause? Did it matter? His feelings ran hot and cold, like his blood. From moment to moment he wanted to laugh hysterically or scream his throat raw.

They walked back to the great hall with wobbly knees. Lianvis was glassy-eyed, his pupils enormous. Ponclast tried not to look at him too much because, every time he did, it was nearly impossible to refrain from throttling him. 

“Where is that har,” he growled in Viss’s ear, “the har who had you? Point him out to me, Viss.” 

Lianvis started, as if surprised at the question. Ponclast was surprised by it himself. He hadn’t thought he cared. Now, he realized that he was murderously jealous. Lianvis pointed across the room with a trembling hand, which Ponclast swatted down. 

“Idiot,” he snapped. “Don’t be so obvious.” But he had followed the direction of Lianvis’ finger. Burning hatred filled his heart as he contemplated the har who had taken what was his. 

“We need to get out of here,” he said thickly, with the last of his presence of mind, “before that har gets dead.”

* * *

The roon was quick and nasty, and I loved it, loved every minute of it. He choked me, and it felt like an embrace, and when he bit into my shoulder I saw stars and stripes like that old flag that showed up so many places. It reminded me of the good bad old days in Oomar, but this setting, the very civility of it, made the whole thing feel so much dirtier. I went back to that elegant soiree with aren dripping down my thigh, disarranged in that way that can only mean one thing, and I didn’t give a flying fuck because I was already flying. I could sense the change in the air, something had turned nasty in him, and I couldn’t help being drawn to it. Moth to flame. Soume to ouana. 

When he asked that question, my heart froze and leapt at the same time. I remembered a line from an old song: _he hit me and it felt like a kiss_. Poor Ilasi, he hadn’t done anything wrong, except not doing the math and realizing what was up.

But he didn’t confront him, no, he grabbed my arm hard enough to bruise and growled a threat in my ear that made my ‘lam clench.

I just nodded and hurried along with him, jingling all the goddamn way. If _I_ ended up dead, I probably deserved it.

* * *

Lust throbbed through Ponclast. His ‘lim was already stiff again, and in fact it had not really gone down after that short, nasty, brutish fuck. He was aware of another feeling as well, a nauseating slickness coming from the deep, hidden pit of him, the orifice whose existence he resolutely ignored, whose occasional hungers he ruthlessly denied. Being ouana and soume at once was unusual for a har, and it was even more rare for it to happen spontaneously. It had to be an effect of the drug. 

Fantasy images flashed unbidden through his mind, with all the intrusiveness of traumatic flashbacks, which about half of them were. 

~~Oomar, zip-tied wrists: mine. A humiliating gush forced from between trembling thighs. “You sound like a girl,” somehar said, and for the first time, I needed to murder.~~

The hume girl whose mouth he had fucked, who had died with his aren scorching a hole clear through her throat, lungs and vocal chords too mangled by the poison to even be able to scream. 

~~Mikhail, so beautiful. Blond, like Terzian. Blonde, like Lianvis. A jaw cut from marble. His ‘lim like a knife inside me. “Now your other cunt,” he said, flipping me over, while his friends laughed and waited their turns.~~

He thought of being pressed tight between Lianvis and Terzian, inside one, the other inside him, provoking jealousy even as he was being punished for it. That sent him over the edge. He threw Viss against the wall in the entryway, savaging his mouth with teeth and tongue, hands groping beneath the filmy robe. Lianvis kissed him back with desperate hunger. The bitter, tingling tang of silver ice was still on his lips. Ponclast nearly shot right then in his trousers. 

“Lordra,” came the cold, disapproving voice. 

Snarling under his breath, he pulled away from Viss and whirled to face Terzian. The har was standing several paces away, drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. His brows were arched, his demeanor disdainful, but his eyes still simmered with hurt. 

“With all due respect, Lordra,” he said, in what was meant to be a clipped tone ruined by the liquor-induced clumsiness of his tongue, “I really must ask that you behave a bit more decorously under my roof. There are harlings about, after all.” 

He didn’t have the chance to say anything else. Ponclast crossed to him in a few swift strides and felled him with his fist. Terzian hit the floor full force, the back of his head smacking hard into the marble tiles. He lay there blinking stupidly, tears welling in his eyes. Ponclast placed his boot on his throat, and spat on his face. Behind him, he heard Lianvis let out a breathy, idiotic, intoxicated giggle.

“You’ll get yours,” Ponclast promised Terzian in a harsh whisper that nonetheless seemed to echo around the entryway. “For now, fuck off. Your ‘lam being wet is not my problem. I don’t want it. I don’t want you. Go seek comfort with one of your whores, or if you can’t get it up, I’m sure you can find a fellow officer who will deign to roon you. Failing that, there’s always your hand. You could take a cold shower. Go for a run. Read a fucking book. There are just _so many_ things you could do instead of boring me with your pathetic lust.” 

It was a lengthy monologue for the usually laconic Ponclast, a veritable deluge of venom. Terzian’s face was contorted with rage and hatred. “One of these days, Lordra,” he rasped, “You’ll go too far.”

Ponclast laughed and removed his boot from Terzian’s neck. “Is it tonight, Terzian?” He demanded mockingly. “Are you going to fight me?” He extended a hand to help him up, an insult and a challenge.

Terzian stayed where he was. His eyes closed in defeat. “No, Lordra,” he said softly. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Ponclast bit out. He turned and stalked towards the staircase. “Come,” he barked at Lianvis, and without waiting for him to follow, began to ascend. 

* * *

He had me up against the wall, hands and teeth and tongue. Silver ice sparkling bitter on our lips, as I wrapped myself around him. Hot and cold and he sent me nightmare images in his breath, made my ‘lam drip, and I imagined the yaloe red and hot as heart’s blood down my thigh.

I showed him himself on top of me, gave him my bright pain and panic from when he had me like a gift at Natalia all wrapped up in pretty paper. I showed him just how afraid he made me and arched like a bow under his touch. I was his. There was no escaping that now.

I was on fire for him.

_Take me, take me, take me, make it hurt so bad I don’t want it anymore. Rape me, rape me, rape me, make me regret everything, make a serpent cry._

But then there was Terzian’s voice, drunk and messy. Idiot har. _Harlings about_ , _of course, except you’re crying like one now, aren’t you? Now that I’m the one he’s touching. Now that I’m the one he’s taking upstairs._

When he hit him, my toes curled and I gasped, the sound of flesh on flesh sending drug induced synesthesiac spasms through my body, like an orgasm. _Pop. Oh god._

He was everything I’d ever wanted right then, grey eyes blazing. He’d put my rival in his place for the night, and done the job of any romantic hero with that swift punch to the jaw, laying out the enemy, sending him sprawling.

I followed after him, knowing he’d be cruel, knowing he’d be cold, but how could I complain?

He didn’t take me to his room, no, not that night. We went to mine. The mirror was fixed now, Forever had very good staff. They’d arranged fresh flowers and got a fire going. White lace edging on the pillow cases, a room for a honeymoon.

 _Are you jealous, baby?_ A question I’d never ask, because I knew the answer and didn’t need him to know it too. 

* * *

There was a freshly made bed right there, but Ponclast threw Viss down on the floor. He watched him crumple to the ground like a beautiful doll, body twisting as he fell, hair loose and wild around him. He needed him bruised and begging, needed him bloody, needed to drink his screams. 

He viciously drove the toe of his iron-shod boot into Viss’s ribs, once, twice. He wanted to hear something crack, but had just enough self-control left to refrain from breaking bones. That bare minimum was all that remained to him. He could feel his mask dissolving, cold composure melting to nothing as his face twisted with sullen rage. 

“Whore,” he spat, “Can’t keep your fucking legs closed for even a couple of days.” 

His heart ached, and his head too, as images of Viss with what’s-his-name played in the large-screen theater of his mind. The pictures conjured by his imagination were lurid, probably far more so than the reality had been. He half-knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. He saw Viss wet, writhing, wanton, gasping another har’s name, and fury blackened his vision. He kicked him again, this time between the legs. Viss shrieked in pain, but there was something lewd in the tone of his voice—a come-on more than a protest.

Ponclast was on him like an animal. The gloves came off, peeled from his sweating hands, and then he was biting, clawing, rending at skin with his perfect clean nails. His ouana-lim was throbbing as if at any moment it might burst, but his soume-lam was still aching too, more so than ever in fact, more than it had in years. It still woke up occasionally, despite his best efforts to ignore it, to keep it perpetually cold, closed and dry. But this was like nothing he could remember feeling. _What a nasty drug._ He’d have to remember to keep away from it. He wanted another bump. 

Viss wriggled shamelessly under him, practically purring. “Hurt me, Lordra,” he moaned, “Please.”

Ponclast obliged with a vicious backhand that sent blood pouring from Viss’s nose. The scarlet running over his lips and down his chin made Ponclast need to taste it. He went in for the kiss the way a predator goes for the kill. When he broke away, red was smeared all over his face.

“I should kill you,” he breathed, “for sharing what’s mine.”

* * *

He hit me and it felt better than a thousand kisses. He hit me and it felt like _I love you_. He hit me and it felt like wedding bells ringing in my head. 

“I’m sorry, Lordra. I won’t ever again, I promise,” I moaned nonsensically, bleeding and needy on the floor. The only way that could work is if I stayed with him, gave myself to him always. I felt my ‘lim twitch under him. I’d forgotten about that little side effect. I was hard and wide open and dripping in my pretty red ~~dress~~ robe.

“Just let me keep being yours, I didn’t know I was yours then, I didn’t know,” words poured from my lips like blood from my nose, “but I’d let you, I’d let you if I can just die yours, Lordra.” There it was, that vile hopeless neediness in me. 

And then his belt was off and I was on my belly and he was hitting me harder than he’d ever hit before and I was screaming loud enough that they probably heard me downstairs whenever the band stopped playing, but they weren’t screams of pain alone. Hit after hit, cymbal crashes in my head and I felt so alive, tears running down my face, my ‘lim pressing against the carpet. My ribs ached. I had never wanted any har so much in my life.

“I can have him killed, Lordra. An accident, it would be so easy,” I babbled, sobbing, terrified that I was going to lose him now; that only when I’d already lost him would I realize how much he’d really cared. “Please just keep me.”

“Shut the fuck up!” 

* * *

Ponclast was beyond restraint, and mostly beyond thought. His whole will and being were bent on one goal: the punishment and subjugation of his soume. He wielded the belt with all his might, putting everything he had into each stroke. Finally, finally, he was not holding back. The beast in him was off the leash and out to play. 

He grabbed Viss by the hips and flipped him over, pushing up his skirts. His ouana-lim was partially extended—apparently the drug had affected him the same way it had Ponclast. He couldn’t be blamed for that, but he still could be punished for it. 

“The fuck am I expected to do with this?” Ponclast sneered. 

“Nothing, Lordra,” Lianvis whimpered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

It was a pretty thing, almost feminine in its own way: gracefully curved, the shape of the head somehow elegant. Ponclast’s ‘lam clenched as he looked at it, and for a moment he let himself wonder: _what if?_ But no—being soume was not for him. He had made vows, and even if he hadn’t, it had always been awful when he’d tried it before. 

Ponclast raised his belt and smacked the offending appendage. It quickly shriveled and retreated as Lianvis howled with pain. 

“That’s better,” the archon growled. “More appropriate.” 

Breathless with lust, he buried his face between the creamy thighs and pressed his tongue into the tangy sweetness of Lianvis’ soume-lam. He had held off from this, half-fearing that the act would diminish him, seeming like kindness, or worse, submission. He had no such fears now. Lianvis was prey, and he was devouring him. It felt nearly cannibalistic. Ponclast had dined on the flesh of humes and even hara. This was better, because Lianvis was still alive, and reacting to the forceful motions of Ponclast’s lips and tongue as if it was his heart, not his ‘lam, that was being consumed. 

The skin was so smooth and soft beneath his lips, all trace of hair removed by his skillful blade. He had turned Lianvis into his ideal sex object, his perfect soume fuck doll—beautiful, silky, and pliant, with ‘lam wide open and ‘lim demurely tucked away. This transformation was Ponclast’s work, the product of his will. The thought made him reel with desire. 

He pushed back Viss’s legs, folding him into that vulnerable position to which Ponclast was partial, so that he could delve deeper with his tongue. He held him there and forced him to cum, bucking and squirming, again and again. It wasn’t difficult. Viss had clearly been teetering on the edge of orgasm for the better part of the night. The balls inside him chimed continuously as he wriggled. Ponclast grunted against him, noises of fierce satisfaction muffled by hot damp flesh. He was reclaiming Lianvis’ body from the usurper, the thief, and enslaving it to him through its own helpless pleasure. 

* * *

He stole language from me, robbed me of dignity. I was his, body, heart, soul, and cunt. Every inch of my flesh. The har born when I nearly died was his creation. Maybe he _had_ given me a pearl that last night together, a new me born when the har I had been died by his own hand earlier today.

This pain translated to one holy truth burning through my body, spelled out in the morse code of impact: _You belong to me._ I did. My ‘lim dripped at the very thought.

When he flipped me over I cringed in fear of his seeing the form my arousal had taken, and I was duly punished for my body’s lapse. It made me wetter, him doing that to me, and then my legs were apart over his shoulders, and his mouth was taking me into outer darkness, devouring me. The balls jangled inside me as my hips bucked spasmodically as he opened sikra after sikra, five, and six, and seven and I swore he managed to find more than that. My hairless ‘lam was more sensitive than ever, the mere brush of air against that tender skin sent shudders through me. Wings beating in my head, the ravens of dispersion. _Ruin me. Rule me_. Even if Ilasi lived, his memory was dead except as a comparison between wrong and precisely horribly brutally right.

He made me come so hard, so much I honestly am not sure I’ve stopped yet. I could be living a dream as he makes my body go supernova, exploding into darkness visible. I felt like I’d just finished althaia, like maybe that night before he’d incepted me and those days of decay had just been me becoming this. I was a virgin again, like a new har being introduced to aruna after only the base human mechanics of sex, except maybe now I was more than har. Maybe he’d incepted me again and made me into something better yet.

* * *

Gorged on his victim’s pleasure, Ponclast raised his head. His face was still smeared in blood, and now also with Lianvis’ juices. His eyes were no longer grey—all black now, eaten by pupil. 

He staggered to his feet, and pulled Viss up by the hair. The har clung to him, even unsteadier than he, melting against his body. His head was tilted back, his lips parted. His adoring eyes were just as black as his master’s. Ponclast kissed him savagely, force-feeding him the taste of himself. 

“You’re mine,” he snarled as they broke apart. 

“Yours, Lordra.” The words were breathed through bloody lips.

They undressed in a frenzy, hurriedly shucking the clothes they had until now been too impatient to get rid of. For just one crazy moment, Ponclast was convinced that they were a woman and a man, that what would emerge from under cloth would be sexual dimorphism in all its archaic glory—soft swells of breast and curving hips versus hard pecs and wiry body hair. Of course once naked they were still hara, their bodies more similar than different, both lean and flat and smooth all over. That was better. To be har was to be perfect and glorious, and to be Varr was to be best of the best. That was what Ponclast told himself as he fought down his own body horror and obscure sense of loss. At least he still had hair under his arms and between his legs, a mark of masculinity he had denied to his conquest. What distinctions nature had failed to provide he could impose by force of will.

He grabbed Viss by the wrist and twisted, wrenching his arm to whirl him around and bend him over the vanity. Lianvis sighed rapturously, staring himself in the mirror through the tousled blond locks that hung over his face. His expression was as lascivious as it was vacant. He looked like a cheap whore, the kind who’ll blow you for a dimebag or maybe just a bump. 

Ponclast caught sight of himself in the mirror as well, and barely recognized what he saw. He finally looked mussed, his face caked in dried blood and other fluids, his short hair spiky from sweat. It was getting too long, if that could happen. He should cut it. He dismissed the thought as a mundane inanity to worry about later, when he didn’t have a pretty ass bent over in front of him. 

All that smooth, blank, creamy skin gave him an idea. He looked at his signet ring—heavy steel, emblazoned with the Varr crest. How many sets of lips had kissed it like a holy relic before pledging fealty to him? He thought it would do very well for his purpose.

He bent over the untidy pile of his discarded clothes, and fished out his lighter and one of his gloves. He used the latter to protect the hand that held the ring as he heated it, the open flame licking at the stylized skull insignia. He had never tried this before. He didn’t know how long it might take to get hot enough for what he had in mind. He waited at least a full minute, until Lianvis was looking over his shoulder in curiosity. Then he thrust the hot metal against the curve of Viss’s ass, much the way he used it to stamp melted wax. The skin hissed beneath its scorching kiss, and Lianvis screamed. 

Ponclast pulled the ring away, and his whole body buzzed with pleasure as he saw that it had left a perfect print. 

“I saw an old film, a long time ago, in which a sadistic jade dealer marked a woman with the same brand he used on his stones.” His voice came out throaty. “It was called ‘The Cheat.’” He emphasized the title.

With gloved fingers he held the ring out to Viss. He had no idea how hot it might still be. 

“Kiss it,” he said. 

* * *

I saw myself in the mirror, bloody and high and his. I had never seen myself as the kind of beautiful he made me see when I looked in that mirror. I was the femme fatale finally getting mine at the end of the movie. My hair was a mess and my makeup had run, and I was all blood and blown pupils. _Junkie cunt,_ Mikhail had called me in one of our last fights before it was over, though the name applied just as much to him as it did to me. 

~~Jarad~~ Ponclast was taking his time. I turned to see a lighter and a leather gloved hand, and then I felt the kiss of red hot metal. I screamed. What else could I do? I knew I was going to bear his mark ever after. No healer can rid you of a scar you want to keep. It was a brand, the kind of mark put on livestock that might wander off… or get stolen.

 _The Cheat._ I closed my eyes for a moment, taking it in. I had been unwittingly unfaithful to him and I hated it, hated myself for letting another har touch what was his. Now though, no matter how much self loathing I might feel, I could never again attempt self destruction. It was up to him whether I lived or died. _His_. He’d branded me, I was his.

“I’m sorry, Lordra” I gasped, still breathless from the pain, and when he held out the ring, I kissed it with no hesitation. It was still warm, with a whiff of burnt flesh.

“Thank you, Lordra,” I said, looking up at him from under my lashes. My soume-lam was so slick with my yaloe and his saliva it felt as if there were a river running through me, and there was no longer any pubic hair to catch the flow and stop it from dribbling lewdly down my inner thighs. How must I look from behind? The plug blatant in my raised ass.

I found myself thrusting helplessly back against air, eager and impatient for his ‘lim.

“Lordra, I’m yours, just yours. No other has ever made me feel what you do. Only what we do feels worthy of calling aruna. With other hara, everything is just pelki. With you, even when I say no, it feels like what aruna should be.”

“So you’d rather be raped by me than fucked by anyhar else?”

“Yes, I hadn’t thought of it that way… but yes, Lordra,” I said, eyes cast down. What was wrong with me? 

* * *

Ponclast laughed savagely at Lianvis’ pathetic admission. He had branded this har, cut him, whipped him, degraded him in every way he could think of, driven him nearly to suicide, and abused his every hole. What more could he take from Viss, apart from his life? That would be impractical, yet still he wanted more. He needed to take everything, every last shred of dignity, selfhood, autonomy, and hope. 

“On your knees,” he commanded, and Lianvis dropped obediently down. “Suck me,” said Ponclast, and was promptly taken into the red, willing mouth. 

He leaned against the vanity, head thrown back and neck arched in pleasure, as Lianvis worked on him. He was more passive than before. Before he had fucked Viss’ lips like a cunt. Now was the time to let the little whore ply his trade, and demonstrate his devotion. He shivered as Viss’s agile tongue swirled around his ouana-head, and teased along the underside of the shaft. Groaning appreciatively he thrust forward, just a little, angling down for the back of the throat. The textured roof of Viss’s mouth felt extraordinary. 

He was still excruciatingly aware of more than one kind of arousal. His ‘lam was drooling a sticky substance down his thighs. He could smell himself, and it disgusted him; but his revulsion did nothing to quell the raw ache within. The harder Viss sucked, the swifter he flicked his lovely tongue, the hungrier Ponclast’s cunt became. 

~~Not that, no. You can’t do that. Nothing must go there. Don’t hurt me like this. Don’t do it to me. Not again. Please.~~

He snarled in frustration. He was the Ag-damn archon of the Varrs. This, before him, was just a foreign slut. Whatever venomous report Lianvis might murmur about the encounter, whatever sick gossip he might put about afterwards, it wouldn’t be believed, not by Ponclast’s hara. Why shouldn’t he please himself, in whatever way he wanted? Vows be damned. He was not a man, he was har, and he had _needs…_

~~You can’t do that, it would violate us, it would violate _me_ , and then they might come back, the ghosts, the ghosts, the ghosts… ~~

Ponclast shook his head hard, to rid it of bad thoughts, and grabbed Viss by the wrist. He forcefully guided the other har’s hand between his thighs. Lianvis stiffened and tried to recoil at the feel of wetness. Well he might fear! He had laid hands on the forbidden, that which no har must touch. Did he think he’d be turned to a pillar of salt? 

Or was he repulsed? Did actually he dare think less of him? 

Rage blackened Ponclast’s sight. 

~~There was a time, Viss, when you couldn’t wait to get your hands, your tongue, your ‘lim, your anything, onto, into, someplace near my hole. Now here it is, dripping for you, and what do you do? You fucking flinch.~~

Ponclast tightened his grip on Viss’s hand and guided his captive fingers forcefully into his own ‘lam. It twitched and oozed around them. It was only the very slightest penetration, yet it was more than he’d felt in years. It thrilled Ponclast, and made his stomach churn. To him this was more taboo than any of the gore and filth in which he’d so ecstatically wallowed. He’d have sooner plucked a har’s eye from his skull and fucked the socket than this. This transgression felt worse than all of his legendary cruelties, for it was a crossing of his own boundaries, a violation of himself. 

“Keep sucking,” he breathlessly growled, grabbing his victim’s hair as well to hold him down on his ‘lim. ~~Me in you and you in me, oh God~~ ~~.~~ He _would_ have his way, all of it, down to the last particular. 

“Does it make you feel dirty?” He taunted. “Does it make you feel not pretty? Well, Viss? What?”

The har, of course, could not reply, only make choking noises on his ‘lim. 

* * *

I wanted to give him everything, wanted to worship at the altar of his body and show him my devotion in every conceivable way. There was the forbidden place though, a place of which I was painfully aware. I could smell it, wet and ready and _his_. Who had touched him there last? Velisarius? Had Mikhail and his friends been the last ones to put anything more than healing fingers inside him?

When he took my fingers and drew them there I tensed. Had he read my mind? Was this a test? Would he kill me if I gave into the temptation of that wet, ready, needy hole?

But then he made me, and I slid them in gently, just teasing the first sikra, looking up at him, trying to read his expression, but as I felt the sikra bloom under my attention his ‘lim twitched in my mouth and I realized, suddenly, that this was what he’d meant earlier that day. The way he moved, even something about the way he felt, the hard grip of his ‘lam on my manicured fingers like the hard grip of his fingers on my wrist. This was what it was to be truly ouana. I could have had my ‘lim in his ‘lam at that moment, and he still would have been ouana and I still would have been soume. 

_I was afraid, Lordra, I thought it was a test, but I understand now. You’re ouana-har, real ouana. You take what you want, that’s what it means to be ouana. I give you what you want. I live to please you. I’m not like this with any other har, I’m_ ** _your_** _soume. You make me truly soume, what I’m meant to be._

I babbled in mind-touch, trying to express the flood of enlightenment he’d just given me with that simple act. He’d shown me truth. It felt like revelation. The muscles there were as strong as those on the rest of that lean, well toned body. Ouana-lam, the secret holy place of Varr warriors. I dripped, needing him in me. The knowledge of that orifice behind his throbbing ‘lim only made me crave it more. It felt like the seat of his potency somehow.

* * *

He was alight with sensation, his mind wholly absorbed by his own hardness and slickness. The sikra blooming under Viss’s fingers radiated heat through his body. With his ‘lim wrapped in a convulsing throat, and two digits thrusting into him in turn, he felt like he had become part of some great machine, a system of gears and pistons and sockets. 

He received Viss’s mind touch, but ignored it. It was fucking nonsense. Flattering fucking nonsense, true—but flattery didn’t much interest him.

Soume-hara, ouana-hara—that was all bullshit. Hara were hara. They all had the same bits. But Ponclast believed that societies ran more smoothly when labor was divided and individuals knew their roles. Soume and ouana were convenient fictions designed to maintain a power structure. He knew that. How could he not know? He’d made it all up. Varr itself was merely part of his armor, an ideological carapace meant to protect him from exactly this sort of intrusion. 

What had possessed him to seek it out?

~~You’re a fucking degenerate. You do all your thinking with your crotch, and go wherever your ‘lim points. You’re probably the part that _liked_ it, all those years ago. We all know how hung up on pelki you are. _You’re_ the one who came. ~~

He twitched as if he’d been hit in the face. Before he knew what he was doing he was shoving Lianvis off of him, out of him. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror, expressionless and frozen. He wanted to drive his fist into his reflection, but dimly remembered that Terzian’s staff had already replaced the glass that day. 

So he hit Viss instead, not with open hand as before, but a closed fist, his knuckles smashing lips against teeth. 

“Not even a ‘lim in your mouth can shut you up, I see,” he snapped. His nerves jangled with fury. He wanted to destroy everything in sight. He raised his arm again and struck, his ‘lim twitching at the impact. Viss was going to have a black eye tomorrow. _Let’s make it two._ He wound up for another punch.

~~That’s right, you fucking prick. Shoot off. You’re nothing but a walking boner. All you care about is sex and acting hard. You sick, obsessive pervert. You sleazy fucking hack.~~

Lianvis was a cringing wreck on the floor, weeping in pain, hands weakly rising to shield himself, then dropping again in submission to the beating. Ponclast grabbed him by the throat and hauled him to his feet, then threw him against the wall. Lianvis slumped there, legs shaking, eyes wide and bleeding lips parted. There was red on his teeth, like smears of lipstick. Ponclast moved in for the kill, his warrior’s instincts screaming at him to finish the fight, even though this was not a fight and he was in no danger at all of losing. He shoved his fingers inside the twitching cunt, popped the steel balls out and let them drop to the floor to roll across the carpet. Then picked Viss up, pressing him against the wall, hitching his knees over his arms,and impaled him with his ouana-lim. The plug in his ass made him feel even tighter. 

Lianvis’s breath reeked of blood. Ponclast clamped his mouth over Viss’s to savor that sweet metallic taste. He was owning all his holes at once now, with his tongue, with his ‘lim, with that chunk of steel. In his breath, he showed Lianvis how he wanted to kill him, all the ways—neck snapped throat slit bullet to the head knife to the guts brains blown in an instant bleeding out slow. In response, Lianvis just moaned and clenched on his ‘lim. 

“Lordra, Lordra,” he mumbled into his lips, “thy will be done.” 

* * *

Bruised and bloody he had me, up against the wall. I let him toss me around like a rag doll, and saw myself die a hundred times. I clawed at his back, clenching almost instantly on his ‘lim.

“Yes, Lordra, please, Lordra,” I begged. He thrust into me like a blade, and I took it like I was accepting an award. “I love you, I love you.”

We were rutting like animals. I clung to him, rolling my hips to meet his brutal thrusts. He wanted me. I had never felt so proud, never felt so beautiful as I did in that moment. The safest place in the world was in his arms where he could kill me. I threw back my head and moaned. So close to climax from all that he was doing to me, and most of all, from the simple knowledge that I was his. I cried out in the ecstatic agony he gave me, pounding into me like a piston. I hoped I’d bleed on his ‘lim, like a virgin, like a victim.

I was helpless in that position. He controlled the rhythm, the depth, everything and I could only respond to the punishment with grateful adoration.

“Show me more,” I begged. His body hard and sculpted by years at war felt like peace pressed right up against mine. I never fought him, never could fight him.

I was clenching on him. The voice from my throat seemed hardly mine anymore. On some level I knew he didn’t believe his own ideology, but didn’t he see that he’d made it real? He’d brought it into being by force of will alone. He had made me soume, the essence of soume, and I had never felt more fulfilled. I hoped I could teach him the occult power he already possessed, the power of what he had brought into being.

* * *

Viss begged to see more, so Ponclast showed him, breathing the whole highlight reel of his atrocities into that hungry mouth. He was only too eager to share it all: the burning towns, the shrieking victims, the piles of bodies, the yawning mass graves. And of course, the pelki, always the pelki—the hara and humes who had writhed and wept and died beneath him. He remembered them all, not by name but by faces, by bodies, by the sounds they had made. These were his cherished memories. To him they shone as bright as the medals and insignia pinned to his uniform. On many a lonely night he had trotted them out, polished them, admired them, and brought himself to shuddering orgasm contemplating their unconscionable glory.

It was exhilarating to tear away the veils, to show himself like this, more naked than flesh could ever be. This was his essence. This is what he had, in place of a heart. 

_This is who I am,_ he told Viss in mind-touch. _Know me, and despair._

_I adore you, Lordra._

_You’re a damn fool._

_No. You are divinity itself. I give myself with open eyes. My King, my God, take me!_

Ponclast closed his eyes, and felt himself being swept away on the wings of rapture. He came with a bestial snarl, stabbing his ‘lim into Lianvis again and again, lost between the beatific present and the rivers of blood that ran through his memories. The moment lasted an eternity, a pure and perfect crystallization of malign bliss. A tingling heat erupted between his eyes, and an icy rush swept up his spine and exploded from the top of his head. _Just now, the world has become perfect._

When the interminable instant had finally passed, he found himself shaking and drenched in sweat. He pulled out of Viss and backed off, dropping him unceremoniously to the floor. 

“I need a smoke,” he whispered hoarsely. 

* * *

I had seen vistas of other planes. I had seen his heart, and it was a black diamond that refracted a thousand strange bestial eyes in a landscape of smoking ruins. I had never loved him more. We were making magic, energy centers opening to allow some otherworldly thing through the veil and into our world. I howled in ecstasy as I joined him in climax, and then… then I was on the floor, looking dazedly up at this idol, this fetish, this king.

“Your high sons shall number ten thousand thousand, and you shall be Lord of a Forest and of a World, and you shall cast the leaves of fate to the wind for you are alone, there is no god where you are,” came a voice from my throat that was not my own. I was trembling as I spoke the words, body still an open channel to some other place, some other time.

He lit a cigar and looked at me absently, although there was still a touch of madness in his eyes. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, Lordra… it just came to me,” I said from my place on the floor, finally aware of just how much I hurt. My face would be a battered mess tomorrow without the aid of healing. Hara would notice. The thought terrified and aroused me.

“Go get yourself ready for bed,” he said, smoking his cigar and looking off into the distance. 

I nodded and limped away to wash off blood and what was left of my makeup, brush and braid my hair and so on. By the time I was through he was passed out on that white lace bed, cigar stubbed out on the nightstand.

I slipped into bed beside him, and he sleepily turned over to pull me against him, wrapping me in his arms. I had to remind myself that it was just because he didn’t want anyone else in my bed, because my god, did it feel like love.


End file.
